ECB's Constancio: Crypto-currencies can never prevail as general money substitutes

Key highlights from the speech by Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the ECB, at the Financial Regulatory Outlook Conference organised by the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Oliver Wyman, Rome 9 November 2017.

Monetary policy, precisely because “it gets in all of the cracks”, is too blind an instrument to try to contain particular credit booms. 

Macroprudential policy and monetary policy rely on separate tools and aim to achieve different objectives.

I welcome the release of policy recommendations by the FSB to address structural vulnerabilities arising from asset management activities. 

The so-called private “crypto-currencies” can never prevail as general money substitutes.

The use of the blockchain by central banks to create digital currency open to all citizens without limits would be really disruptive.

This would be a radical political choice that could end banking as we know it and is therefore unlikely to happen.