Bank of Japan stated Cryptocurrency isn’t now a project
The Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya has recently reiterated his negative stance towards central bank-issued digital currencies (CBDC), the New York Times reports Oct. 20.
He elaborated that the Bank of Japan had no plans whatsoever to issue a cryptocurrency.
Mr. Amamiya said that there was “quite a hurdle” for cryptocurrencies to overcome fiat currencies, and pointed out that they are mostly used as a means for investment rather than for actual payment or settlement. However, it is clear that this trend is changing, as Ripple, a cryptocurrency in the global payments space, has announced high-profile partnerships with financial institutions such as PNC Bank, a Top 10 United States bank with over 8 million customers, and more recently with the largest private foundation in the United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The BOJ deputy governor stressed that the bank is not planning creating a CBDC that can be widely used by the public for settlement and payment purposes. The shift to bank-issued crypto from the existing sovereign currencies is considered “quite a high hurdle,” while crypto assets are often associated with speculative investments and do not represent a stable means of payment, he noted.
Earlier this week, a Japanese taxation policy committee held a discussion aiming to facilitate the cryptocurrency tax reporting process, with participants calling to alleviate the existing complex tax filing regime.
On Oct. 16, Japan’s messaging giant LINE launched trading of its recently-developed LINK (LN) token on its native BITBOX cryptocurrency exchange.
This is not the first time that someone associated with a central bank has weighed in on cryptocurrency, and whether it should issue a digital currency. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, and widely considered one of the most important figures in global finance, recently downplayed the idea, stating that the “underlying technology is still fragile”.
Despite these statements from respected figures at central banks, there are other organizations that believe otherwise. The World Trade Organization, which many consider to be the number one organization in terms of regulating international report, recently released a report that seemed to praise digital assets and their potential.
The report, called “The Future of World Trade: How Digital Technologies Are Transforming Global Commerce”, was not ambivalent in its claims, stating explicitly that “blockchain has the potential to profoundly transform the way we trade, who trades, and what is traded”. The report singled out Ripple specifically in terms of its potential with regards to the global payments sector, as well.