Philippine Central Bank Governor Explains Crypto Policy – “I Don’t Want It Banned” – Regulation Bitcoin News

The Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines has shared his policy on cryptocurrency regulation. “I don’t want it banned,” he said, advising investors not to invest money they can’t afford to lose in crypto.

Philippine Central Bank Chief of Crypto Regulation

Felipe Medalla, the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, shared his cryptocurrency policy in an interview with Forkast, published on Friday.

Medalla was asked, “What do you think about cryptocurrency?” He answered:

I don’t want it banned, but I don’t want to call it cryptocurrency.

The central bank governor explained that, in his opinion, cryptocurrency “actually has very little use for actual payments, especially when the price is so volatile.” He emphasized that currency cannot be very volatile, and suggested calling it “crypto-assets.”

Medalla then criticized bitcoin’s environmental impact, stating that the crypto is “bad for the environment because the amount of electricity that the miners use is greater than the electrical consumption of some countries.”

Nonetheless, crypto is “a good thing” since “it’s an alternative to the government” in countries “with so much financial and economic repression,” he admitted. “The other thing it’s useful for is evading government surveillance,” the central banker pointed out, adding: “The question is what social good does it achieve?”

Emphasizing that “In most countries where the government is not perfect but largely contributes to the common good, you don’t necessarily want to weaken the government,” Medalla said:

So my view is that the valuation may be too high because of all the things I said.

The Philippine central banker went on to talk about the decline in the crypto market. “It has already happened that the bubble has collapsed. Right? Some of the crypto-assets have fallen by almost two-thirds in a very, very short period of time,” Medalla detailed, elaborating:

So my advice is always that if you go to buy this, don’t put in money you can’t afford to lose.

Regarding the Philippine Central Bank’s crypto policy, Medalla stressed: “Our policy position, it must not be used to evade anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules.”

He concluded that for exchanges, “where you exchange crypto-assets for bank deposits or physical currency,” it is the central bank’s policy to enforce “all the rules necessary to prevent money laundering, especially to finance crimes.”

What do you think of the comments of the Philippine central bank governor? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects and the intersection of finance and cryptography.