Note that the Bank of England is well known to fans of the cryptocurrency industry. First and foremost, it is because of the organisation's governor Andrew Bailey, who has repeatedly criticised Bitcoin and the coin industry as a whole.

For example, in March 2020, Andrew called digital assets a good way to lose your own money and advised all Bitcoin buyers to be prepared. At the same time, Andrew stated that cryptocurrency has no real value.


In autumn 2020, Bailey again mentioned the lack of intrinsic value of the first cryptocurrency. In addition, he criticised Bitcoin’s overly dramatic exchange rate changes, making the latter allegedly unsuitable for value translation. That said, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the day before that BTC can indeed be used to share value over a distance. Here is his quote from an interview with CNBC.

Cryptocurrency contracts? It’s too early to talk about it, because cryptocurrency can certainly be a unit of account, but it is very unstable. To transfer funds from one place to another, yes, but to trade, especially to trade energy resources, in my opinion, it is still premature.

Bank of England spokesman Andrew Bailey

It's important to note that since Bailey's criticism of Bitcoin in the fall of 2020, its value has managed to rise several times. In addition, BTC is now close to the $60,000 level.

New criticism of Bitcoin

According to Cunliffe, the fact that the crypto industry accounts for only a small portion of transaction volumes compared to traditional markets is a threat from Bitcoin. And a very visible one at that.

Of course, the $2.3 trillion capitalisation of the crypto market has to be seen in the context of a global financial system worth $250 trillion. But as the financial crisis has shown us, you don’t even have to consider a large part of the financial sector to cause problems with economic stability.

So here the banker believes that cryptocurrencies are in a position to cause a global financial crisis. Why exactly is unclear, as digital assets have already collapsed in value by tens of percent overnight and even gone through several bear cycles more than once. In that context, such statements seem to be just a desire to scare off inexperienced investors who might want to get involved in digital assets in the face of BTC's rise.

John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England

Cunliffe’s comment, published by Decrypt, stands in stark contrast to a previous statement from a Bank of England authority a few days ago. Recall that last week the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) issued a publication stating that cryptocurrency markets pose only a “limited risk” to the UK economy.

Still, Sir Cunliffe is not the only one to have recently publicly stated the potential dangers of cryptocurrencies to economic stability. In January this year, the UK regulator FCA issued a consumer warning about cryptocurrencies, listing five well-founded concerns about the industry, ranging from customer protection to the price volatility of digital assets.

Bitcoin after another ban

In more news from the UK, the arrest of local miner Sanjay Singh, who is accused of stealing around $44,000 worth of Bitcoin mining power. The suspect was sentenced to 13 months and two weeks in jail for illegal use of resources.

Singh was first spotted by authorities when a local electricity provider began investigating a malfunction caused by a miner mishandling communications. The premises where the Englishman’s crypto farms stood were found to have electrical safety violations. This happened at an industrial plant near Coleville, but while the investigation was ongoing, Singh reportedly tried to mine again at a local nightclub.


We believe that criticism of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general is no longer relevant in 2021. BTC is now official tender in El Salvador and the US is one step away from approving the first cryptocurrency ETF. As such, a lack of faith in the potential of digital assets is too risky in the coming months. At the very least, the cryptocurrency market is hinting at this.