financemagnates.com
Derville Rowland, one of the top officials at Ireland’s central bank, has joined an array of regulators and traditional financial market experts to sound an alarm against the cryptocurrency boom. She said that the recent rise in popularity of cryptos like Bitcoin is ‘of great concern’, Bloomberg reported.
In an interview, she highlighted that crypto assets are ‘quite a speculative, unregulated investment’. She further warned investors to be cautious as they can lose all of their investments.
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Rowland is an extremely strong voice within the European regulatory space. She heads the Irish monetary regulator’s division that imposed heavy fines to some of the biggest lenders operating in the country and will take over as the chairwoman of the European Securities and Markets Authority’s investment management standing committee, which helps in preparing regulations for the fund’s industry.
Regulators Are against Bitcoin
Her comments against digital currencies came days after some of the harsh criticisms made on the asset class by Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey. He said that cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value and warned investors to ‘buy them only if you’re prepared to lose all your money.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda also raised his concerns on the ‘extremely high’ volatility of the cryptocurrency market last week. Jamie Dimon, chief of JPMorgan, recently advised people to ‘stay away’ from Bitcoin. However, his bank is offering crypto investment services to wealthy clients.
“My own personal advice to people is [to] stay away from it. That does not mean the clients don’t want it. This goes back to how you have to run a business. I don’t smoke marijuana but if you make it nationally legal, I’m not going to stop our people from banking it,” Dimon said.
Cryptocurrencies, specifically Bitcoin, have seen widespread adoption by institutions in recent months. The inclusion of the digital asset into many company’s balance sheets and investments from billionaires and funds pushed the price of Bitcoin to a record high at almost $65,000. However, the trillion-dollar market has been witnessing corrections for weeks as Bitcoin shed more than 45 percent of its peak value.