Bitcoin Forum

The president of the European Central Bank has publicly stated that European banks could hold positions in bitcoin after developments such as Bitcoin futures contracts listings by US exchanges.

While delivering the opening statement and closing remarks at a European Parliament meeting this week, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi weighed in on the topic of cryptocurrencies referencing their discussions by other speakers during the meeting. The ECB chief revealed the authority hadn’t observed any current trend of European banks holding cryptocurrencies. More pointedly, financial institutions in the European Union “are showing a limited appetite for digital currencies like Bitcoin” he said, adding this is currently the case despite a heightened public interest and appetite for cryptocurrencies.

That trend could change with the advent of cryptocurrencies permeating into mainstream finance, the central banker admitted.

Draghi stated:

“However, recent developments, such as the listing of Bitcoin futures contracts by US exchanges, could lead European banks too to hold positions in Bitcoin, and therefore we will certainly look at that.”

It’s a noteworthy statement from Draghi, despite following up the remark by deeming “unregulated” Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as “very risky assets” where banks should proactively consider risks if they decide to include cryptocurrencies within their portfolio. To the contempt of many Wall Street banks, the world’s largest derivatives exchange – the CME Group, listed bitcoin futures contracts in mid-December after cross-town CBOE led the way with its own listing a week prior.

The EU central banking head also hinted at an upcoming uniform oversight via a ‘Single Supervisory Mechanism’ to oversee digital assets’ risks toward supervised institutions, or banks.

Draghi has previously stated that the ECB does not have the authority to regulate bitcoin but his remarks this week suggest a more supervisory – not regulatory – approach to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies adopted or allowed among EU banks and possibly nations. Somewhat contradictorily, Draghi also suggested – later that month in October 2016 – that cryptocurrencies hadn’t matured enough for the ECB to consider regulation.

In November, Draghi added that bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency sector’s impact was “pretty limited” and did not pose any risks for central banks as decentralized cryptocurrencies that fundamentally reject the control of money supply through a few institutions.

Font: https://www.ccn.com/european-banks-soon-hold-bitcoin-admits-ecb-president/

This is good news. With the recent news from USA, the world started to embrace Bitcoin and Crypto currency. With banks having Bitcoin on their wallets, market cap will increase more and more.

I believe that April will be the month of Crypto

I wouldn't get too excited over this, statements are still vague. And central banks can often be good contrarian indicators, if they start holding positions in bitcoin it could be at the top. Many CBs they had blunders with gold selling low in early 2000s, and buying high in early 2010s

The good news are now coming it looks like the red tide is over. More on more good news are now coming from US, Japan, and now from Europe. If this will continue, market cap will certainly rise. More investor again will be entice, and for those who lost from their last trade maybe this is the time to reconsider.

If there are certain banks accept and adopt cryptocurrency like bitcoin, well it is so good, and the positve impact of that can cause many banking businesses also followed to hold and used bitcoin. Hoping that it will not directly affect the price status of bitcoin, when there's a lot of banks accessed and accept bitcoin. My only concern is all about the good fortune of bitcoin operation and without any hardship and obstacles to be encountered.

Its indeed a good news to the crypto world. But the question is, can it affect the current state of Bitcoin? for long term, I guess yes. But for short term it will not, this news will just pass by.

That's a big move right there and can possibly a game changer for bitcoin and the rest of cryptos. Hope that this move will encourage others for a much wider bitcoin adoption and perhaps this will be the stepping stone for bitcoin global adoption.

This are some great news but it is hard to belive that it is going to happen very soon because it will be hard for banks to accept bitcoin since it was created to be against and better than banks. The irreversible and the anonymous of the transactions will be a disadvantage for banks because it will be hard to differentiate the persons and their wallet. Anyway, the idea is good but I would like to see how they are going to do this.

Yes of course, lots of FOMO from all the financial world, knowing that this market is set to grow even if most of them do not care anything about the technical part.

It is just a matter of time when we can see it happen

NOT BTC!!!


Those positions do not involve the actual ownership of BTC.
Settlements are not made in BTC on those markets.

But who the hell reads the whole post these days, a quick look at the topic title and let the spam fest begin.

Welcome on Bitcointalk where OP's don't matter anymore due to the sheer number of title only readers. Should we get rid of OP's entirely and just stick to titles?  :D

On a more serious note, future contracts are far too short term focused for a central bank to hold positions in, where on top of that, it's highly risky as well, and for that reason don't believe they will actually proceed with it. I think when the time is ripe, and there are funds available backed by actual Bitcoins that are taken out of circulation, that this will be far more suitable to hold positions in. They could even have their own fund set up where they keep accumulating coins per whatever time frame. Either way, this is just empty speculation since there is nothing in this article giving an indication of what might become reality. We know that words alone don't mean anything....

In spite of them holding positions in bitcoin futures, isn’t that going to help in the value of bitcoins rising, can anyone clarify that for me.

I don't think so, they are not dealing with bitcoin at all this means those future markets are nothing but bets on the direction the market will move, in my opinion this is nothing but an attempt to make the price of bitcoin lower and to try to tame the market of cryptocurrencies so it does not bring as much attention as it has been in the last year  since people are beginning to notice the great profits you can get by investing in it and it is also an attempt to try to make money out of it.

I didn’t even read the post too, cause it was too long. Nobody cares to read long posts these, even watching long videos that are making no sense or without fun. But when I read the topic the first thing that came to my mind was – not FRANCE! Lol, cause I know they have been saying that Bitcoin is not good to be used as currency or anything similar.I won’t even believe that banks will accept bitcoin, cause Bitcoin is not even meant to be used in banks. It’s just like gold and gold is not being used in banks.