The newly-appointed ECB President Christine Lagarde said during her first press conference, held on Thursday that the European Central Bank (ECB) will do whatever it can be at the top of its game in stablecoin growth and adoption.
Referring to matured interests in the space, especially shown by countries like Canada, that launched its dollar-pegged stablecoin CUSD last month, the London Block Exchange that rolled out its first-ever GBP-backed stablecoin in September given the instability in sterling pound price amid Brexit uncertainty, and China, an anti-crypto country that is willing to promote use of blockchain and Bitcoin only to pave the way for its highly-awaited digital yuan, Lagarde highlighted that all of this and more is putting tremendous pressure on ECB to take the lead about stablecoins.
ECB President takes a pro-stablecoin stance
Lagarde assured that sometime during the next year, the ECB would be ready to establish clear goals and objectives for its digital assets task force and one of that will undoubtedly include carefully assessing the ups and downs with stablecoin adoption.
I firmly believe that stablecoins are gaining massive traction as a lot of stablecoin projects are underway. We only know about those which are published and rolled out but there many ongoing projects that are about to be launched anytime. ECB better pull up its socks and get back in the game if we want to put ourselves in the prime position in the digital innovation arena. There is a considerable demand for stablecoin, and it’s time we respond to it, Lagarde asserted with conviction.
Anti-Libra but pro-central bank digital currency
Although private stablecoins, like Facebook’s Libra stablecoin, have faced harsh criticism and rebuke from the ECB, it appears that the bank is finally coming to terms with the concept of central bank-backed cryptocurrencies. Earlier this month, it published a report that stated the possibility of the ECB accelerating the process of launching its European CBDC, as early as next year, if cash transactions witness decline in demand.
In November, Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB’s former president, assumed a rather dissentient approach towards world’s longest-running cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, that it doesn’t possess any characteristics of a real currency.
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