ECB official backs bitcoin clampdown

Yves Mersch joins growing list of experts calling for restrictions on cryptocurrencies

" What the experts have said about bitcoin

A top European Central Bank policymaker has joined calls for a global clampdown on virtual currencies such as bitcoin because of their threat to financial stability.

Yves Mersch, a member of the ECB's executive board, said the central bank shared the views voiced by Agustin Carstens, the head of the Bank for International Settlements, who on Monday condemned bitcoin as "a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster".

Bitcoin is the first, and the biggest, "cryptocurrency" - a decentralised tradeable digital asset. Whether it is a bad investment is the big question. Bitcoin can only be used as a medium of exchange and in practice has been far more important for the dark economy than it has for most legitimate uses. The lack of any central authority makes bitcoin remarkably resilient to censorship, corruption - or regulation. That means it has attracted a range of backers, from libertarian monetarists who enjoy the idea of a currency with no inflation and no central bank, to drug dealers who like the fact that it is hard (but not impossible) to trace a bitcoin transaction back to a physical person.