[2019-03-24]Bank of Italy Calls Bitcoin Useless, Risky and Inefficient

[Vladdirescu87]

Recently, the Central Bank of Italy published a report against digital currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), defining them as dangerous, useless, speculative and inefficient. The bank is not happy with how cryptocurrencies are being used.

Many criminals have taken advantage of cryptos to run their illegal activities such as funding terrorism such as al-Qaeda, money laundering, supporting prostitution, drugs, sex etc.

Read the details in the article of Coinidol dot com, the world blockchain news outlet: https://coinidol.com/bitcoin-useless-risky/

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[LeGaulois]

Lately a publication of the European Central Bank estimated the BTC transactions related to illegal activity at 4%. And this figure still seems quite close because it is true that the trend is no longer to use Bitcoin for dubious activities, but rather privacy coins. Why the Central Bank of Italy isn't happy, as it says.
Is it happy with how its currency is being used on a larger scale by the Italian mafia that corrupts public markets and companies? Isn't there a bigger effort to be made on this side? Or they're afraid

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Many criminals have taken advantage of cryptos to run their illegal activities such as funding terrorism such as al-Qaeda, money laundering, supporting prostitution, drugs, sex etc.

Beats my understanding why cryptocurrencies are now being blamed for illegal activities.
Terrorism such as Al-Qaeda has existed long before cryptos even came to the scene
Prostitution, Sex, Drugs have been there for centuries... Heck! Wasn't Pablo Escobar receiving the so called clean US Dollars during the time of rampant drug trafficking to the US in the 1980s?

I find these allegations just a way of trying to blind the public from adoption cryptocurrencies.

[1Referee]

Bitcoiners call banks useless and banks call Bitcoin useless. The mud throwing battle continues. 

In the end, both will end up benefiting from each other; banks in form of custody and trading desk fees (perhaps insurance too), and Bitcoin in form of fiat entry/exit points. Just think about it, if Bitcoin from their point of view was legit as useless as plenty of banks claim it is, they wouldn't get involved at all, but they do.

That being said, with the Italian economy sucking balls, the Central Bank Of Italy has other problems to focus on. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

Shock! Institution which relies entirely on fiat being the dominant form of currency to make all their profits slanders alternate form of currency which threatens fiat. Next you'll be telling me that oil companies oppose environmental laws and protections!

This isn't news at all, and as others have pointed out, fiat plays a much larger and more widespread role in all kinds of shady activities (from tax evasion and money laundering to drugs and weapon trading) than cryptocurrencies do.

[davis196]

Bitcoiners call banks useless and banks call Bitcoin useless. The mud throwing battle continues. 

In the end, both will end up benefiting from each other; banks in form of custody and trading desk fees (perhaps insurance too), and Bitcoin in form of fiat entry/exit points. Just think about it, if Bitcoin from their point of view was legit as useless as plenty of banks claim it is, they wouldn't get involved at all, but they do.

That being said, with the Italian economy sucking balls, the Central Bank Of Italy has other problems to focus on. 

I don't think that crypto and banks will benefit from each other.The banks might benefit from crypto/blockchain adoption,but the crypto world doesn't need banks as a entry/exit point(I don't know what do you mean by entry/exit points. ).
Anyway,it's just another pointless FUD.

[BitHodler]

That being said, with the Italian economy sucking balls, the Central Bank Of Italy has other problems to focus on. 

Central banks have a very easy way to deal with that, which is to simply create more money. By doing that they can temporarily put things to the rest till everything starts brewing again and they create even more money.

I do however believe that when BOI implodes, it will take Europe down with it in its entirety. It will be hundreds of times worse than what happened with Cyprus and Greece. It's a ticking time bomb.

One day central banks will stock up on Bitcoin to hedge the risks of their own shitty system. It might already be the case but they obviously won't publicly announce that due to how most central banks have criticized Bitcoin in the recent years.

[CryptoBry]

I agree with the assessment that Bitcoin is utilized by some criminals and this is one area that the whole industry should seriously look into even for the sake of prevention. However, to make things fair, fiat money is more used on this aspect rather than cryptocurrency so why single out Bitcoin when it is not the culprit at all? Is there anyone making a complain if a terrorist can be using the dollar or any fiat money as he is sowing his evil intention? I think doing so can be laughable. Banks and the people manning this big industry are always wary about Bitcoin so what they are doing now is just naturally protecting their turf...nothing more nothing less so we might as well ignore them.

[veleten]

a truely unexpected and shocking turn of events - a bank , a centralised institution that is built on making profit loaning people their own money
is against something that could substitute fiat in the future thus ending their dominance
never happened before and now again :
https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/06/11/why-bankers-hate-cryptocurrency/
their song is the same as before: volatility, instability ,money laundering , funding terrorism

[Oilacris]

a truely unexpected and shocking turn of events - a bank , a centralised institution that is built on making profit loaning people their own money
is against something that could substitute fiat in the future thus ending their dominance
never happened before and now again :
https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/06/11/why-bankers-hate-cryptocurrency/
their song is the same as before: volatility, instability ,money laundering , funding terrorism

So, its not really a shocking story anymore came from these banks.They have been saying these things all over again since from the earlier years of
crypto when it do already starting a buzz.They don't even realized that theyre already been tagged up with money laundering since the beginning of time.

[1Referee]

I don't think that crypto and banks will benefit from each other.The banks might benefit from crypto/blockchain adoption,but the crypto world doesn't need banks as a entry/exit point(I don't know what do you mean by entry/exit points. ).

If you don't know what banks functioning as fiat entry/exit points are, how do you know the crypto world doesn't need it?

With entry/exit points I am referring to exchanges with bank accounts allowing people to deposit and withdraw fiat. Without this we would never be where we are today, because the far majority of the people buy their coins by sending fiat to an exchange, which they need the banks for.

[pixie85]

What is a stronger word from many?  They say it's used for many illegal activities like terrorism. Fiat currencies are used for almost all criminal activities so why aren't we talking about this. Is a million dollars transferred by a drug buyer to the dealer a big thing? How about 100 million that at the same time is being exchanged around the world to buy drugs? 

[Naida_BR]

Lately a publication of the European Central Bank estimated the BTC transactions related to illegal activity at 4%. And this figure still seems quite close because it is true that the trend is no longer to use Bitcoin for dubious activities, but rather privacy coins. Why the Central Bank of Italy isn't happy, as it says.
Is it happy with how its currency is being used on a larger scale by the Italian mafia that corrupts public markets and companies? Isn't there a bigger effort to be made on this side? Or they're afraid

The funny thing is that Mafia operates "legally" in Italy because government earns a considerable amount of money from them via taxes etc due to their activities in the country.
The don't want cryptocurrencies because they are unable to control it. Criminality is not their problem because they allow to exist it. They are just afraid that they will lose their portion of money if Mafia switches to cryptos.

[Slow death]

Recently, the Central Bank of Italy published a report against digital currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), defining them as dangerous, useless, speculative and inefficient. The bank is not happy with how cryptocurrencies are being used.

they should say why they think that bitcoin is dangerous, useless, speculative and inefficient. without any proof that supports those words they said. Is only exaggerated opinion of them, this should not be something worthy of news for the crypto world

Many criminals have taken advantage of cryptos to run their illegal activities such as funding terrorism such as al-Qaeda, money laundering, supporting prostitution, drugs, sex etc.

criminals use a knife to kill innocent people, we will not be blaming bitcoin for things that evil people have done before Satoshi even created bitcoin

[magneto]

Recently, the Central Bank of Italy published a report against digital currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), defining them as dangerous, useless, speculative and inefficient. The bank is not happy with how cryptocurrencies are being used.

Many criminals have taken advantage of cryptos to run their illegal activities such as funding terrorism such as al-Qaeda, money laundering, supporting prostitution, drugs, sex etc.

The only thing that is somewhat true from the four accusations is probably speculative. Bitcoin's value right now certainly still has a speculative element to it given the fact that real adoption is still fairly low in the grand scheme of things.

However, apart from that, I think that they're honestly just stating things that have been already reiterated over and over again in the past.

Bitcoin is decentralised, and there is no one that can stop certain rogue people from using a currency for illegal means. It's interest how they're this concerned about bitcoin's criminal use, while basically completely ignoring the fact that their own fiat currency is also used for the same deeds. It's simply impossible for a currency, especially a decentralised one, to regulate what exactly it is used for.

They're also completely ignoring the utility that bitcoin brings, in terms of being a global means of exchange, and store of value. I would certainly take what they say with a huge grain of salt overall.

[BitHodler]

They're also completely ignoring the utility that bitcoin brings, in terms of being a global means of exchange, and store of value. I would certainly take what they say with a huge grain of salt overall.

They either don't see it because of their ignorance, or they know Bitcoin has quite a powerful utility, but don't want to admit it, not sure what is worse. It's their loss at the end of the day.

Gold bugs fit in the same category where they continuously repeat that Bitcoin isn't a store of value because it has gone down a lot, which is quite funny considering that gold is still far away from its all time high.

It all comes down to when you entered the market, and based on that Bitcoin is either a very good or very bad store of value, and the same applies to gold. For me it has been a fantastic store of value.

[coolcoinz]

When someone makes a claim it's wise to check if they can prove it. For instance, they say it's useless, but have no proof. I say it has it's use and provide proof in the form of something that I bought with it, or a job that I've been paid for with bitcoin. Now, this makes The Bank of Italy look a bit silly, doesn't it?
Risky? I'd argue that keeping money in a private institution that can go bankrupt is by far more risky, but what do I know, right?
Inefficient? Try sending money to another continent with PayPal, or Western Union!

[1BTC EQUALS 1CAR]

Dangerous?....for the Italian mafia groups? In that statement, I do agree but not the statement from the bank of italy.  I only see the risk of them getting exposed when they need to transact through bitcoin because whatever influence or power they got, they can't send anyone to clean that mess.