Alejandro Diaz de Leon, deputy governor of Banco de Mexico (Banxico), speaks during an interview at the bank’s headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico, on Monday, Feb. 20, 2017. Mexico’s central bank should be prepared for a slowdown in its economy while growth in the U.S. accelerates, with potential implications to the path of benchmark interest rates in the coming months, the newest member of the central bank board Diaz de Leon said. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg
There have been a lot of controversies surrounding Bitcoin, from people calling it a scam, to others saying it is based on thin air and therefore is not money. Irrespective of comments like these and some of the setbacks that Bitcoin has faced, it continued to maneuver its way into the hearts of people, businesses, and most recently Central American country El Salvador, where it is now a legal tender and can be used for any transaction.
The Governor of Mexico’s central bank has come out to air his opinion about flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Alejandro Diaz, the governor of Mexico’s central bank – el Banco de Mexico said Bitcoin is not real money. He described Bitcoin as another item for barter, that it was in no way money at all.
The governor of the apex bank reportedly said that “whoever receives Bitcoin in exchange for a good or service, we believe that transaction is more akin to bartering because that person is exchanging a good for a good, and not really money for a good”.
The statement reminds us of the time when the former President of the United States of America said that Bitcoin was a scam and a currency based on thin air. Trump made this statement during an interview with Fox News. Specifically, he said that “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam… I don’t like it because it is another currency competing against the dollar. Essentially, it is a currency competing against the dollar. I want the dollar to be the currency of the world, that’s what I’ve always said”.
Alejandro Diaz also said that “Bitcoin is more like a dimension of precious metals than daily legal tender”. What he, therefore, means by this statement is that the world’s most valued cryptocurrency is not a reliable option for storing wealth especially because of its volatility.
“People will not want their purchasing power, their salary to go up or down 10 percent from one day to another. You don’t want that volatility for purchasing power. In that sense, it is not a good safeguard of value”, the governor added explaining his reason why Bitcoin is not money and should not be made into a country’s legal tender.
Irrespective of the controversies surrounding it and the recent price crash which was majorly a result of the troubles encountered by El Salvador during its Bitcoin launch, people are buying the dip and still have high hopes for Bitcoin.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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