It should be reminded that the Bank of England representatives regularly criticize Bitcoin and cannot accept the existence of decentralized assets that no one can control. For example, in mid-October 2021, John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England (BoE), even stated that Bitcoin could cause a global financial crisis. And that sounds amusing given the inflation that has emerged around the world in recent months amidst the actions of various governments. Read more about the banker's criticism in a separate piece.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin problems

Bailey made his latest statement during a talk at Cambridge University. Here is one of the quotes published by Decrypt.

I am concerned that an entire country would choose to choose Bitcoin as its national currency. My biggest concern is that the citizens of El Salvador understand the nature and volatility of the currency they now have.

As a reminder, volatility refers to dramatic changes in the value of cryptocurrencies. It is also one of the main reasons for criticism of digital assets, as not every investor is willing to tolerate portfolio drawdowns of tens of percent over several days. However, crypto is also able to grow upwards.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey

Immediately after the government’s recognition of Bitcoin in early September, protests began breaking out inside El Salvador. However, they hardly gained any serious momentum and in no way hindered the strategy of Salvadoran President Nayib Buquele. Recently Buquele even announced the construction of a new city financed by cryptocurrency-backed bonds. The so-called “Bitcoin City” is set to become an important point on the map for crypto investors and one of the best places in the world to work with cryptocurrencies.

That said, El Salvador continues to invest directly in Bitcoin. Specifically, last night Nayib announced the state’s purchase of an additional 100 bitcoins. The country’s cryptocurrency volume is already over a thousand coins.

Previously, Bailey had also criticised El Salvador’s progress in embracing innovation and Bitcoin itself. However, his words don’t seem to have any effect on the global trend: digital assets now figure in the daily lives of so many people. Direct evidence of this is Bitcoin’s new record for the number of transactions processed.

The rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

The day before, the cryptocurrency overtook PayPal in terms of dollar equivalent transfers. This was shared by analysts at the Blockdata platform. They also concluded that at the same rate of development Bitcoin has a good chance to take the place of Mastercard by 2026.

In the last quarter alone, the Bitcoin network processed over $489 billion in payments. By comparison, the same figure for PayPal is $302 billion. The cryptocurrency is still far behind Visa and Mastercard – these payment systems process an average of $3.2 trillion and $1.8 trillion respectively.

Comparison of transaction volumes processed for Bitcoin, PayPal, Mastercard and Visa

The cryptosphere has been around for more than twelve years, with only the last few years making it popular with the general public. Bitcoin is growing at a faster pace than most other innovations, so cryptocurrencies are now one of the most promising places to invest for the long term. However, this is not the case for all coins, and investors should obviously not forget the rules of risk control. Still, in case of a global market downturn, not everyone can refrain from selling coins at a loss – and that usually does not end well for the profit.


We think that bankers' remarks like that just underline how outdated the traditional financial system has become today. Fortunately, decentralized assets have the potential to change that, and blockchain will allow everyone to connect with such services. All you need to interact with the coin industry is a wallet and an internet connection.

What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. There we will talk about other topics related to the world of blockchain and decentralisation.