Bitcoin Has Failed as a Currency, Says Bank of England Governor

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has pegged bitcoin as a failure when it comes to the standard benchmark of being a currency.

He also added that it is neither a store of value or a useful way of making purchases.

“It has pretty much failed thus far on … the traditional aspects of money. It is not a store of value because it is all over the map. Nobody uses it as a medium of exchange,” Carney told students at London’s Regent’s University. Carney’s comments were quoted from a report in the Telegraph.

However, the cryptocurrency’s underlying technology may be very useful as a means to authenticate financial transactions in a decentralized way, Carney added in what was an answer to a query lobbed at him.

The central bank governor also shared that in order to make Britain’s departure from the European Union in March 2019 as seamless as possible, British regulators desires to provide financial institutions “the benefit of the doubt, beyond the last minute.”

Sterling’s actions were largely spurred by financial speculation over the impending Brexit, and he said British and European authorities were hard at work to settle a transitional deal before the end of March.

“Everyone is very focused on that. It obviously won’t be a hard, legally binding agreement. But I can tell you that if 28 leaders agree to something that has legal text associated with it, which will be part of the separation agreement, that should be good enough,” he said.

Carney made the comments in a question and answer assembly after giving a speech on leadership, wherein he emphasized the significance of humility and empathy and remarked that financiers should not be driven by profit and profit alone.