When buying bitcoin, a person enters a “minefield”, since his funds are not protected by law, First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Sergei Shvetsov said in an interview with Reuters. The conversation was published on the regulator’s website.
“Buying the same bitcoin, a person enters a minefield, where, besides himself, he has no one to rely on and no one can protect him. We also tell the citizens about this that you do not need to go where you are not under the protection of the Russian Federation, where your money will simply be taken away and you cannot do anything about it, ”he said.
In February, when bitcoin was appreciating at a rapid pace, the chairman of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina pointed to the high volatility of this cryptocurrency. The use of such an asset, she said, is fraught with risks. In addition, bitcoin can be actively used for all sorts of dubious transactions, the head of the regulator added.
At the end of winter, the chairman of the board of Otkritie Bank, Mikhail Zadornov, compared Bitcoin to a financial pyramid. He argued his position by the fact that the cryptocurrency has no real consumer value.
Earlier, the founder of space technology manufacturer SpaceX and Tesla Elon Musk spoke skeptically about bitcoin. He called the decision of his second company to invest $ 1.5 billion in cryptocurrency “quite adventurous.” The entrepreneur explained that bitcoin is still a less stupid form of storing funds than fiat money, but not much superior to them.
Bitcoin has risen in price at a rapid pace since the end of October last year. In mid-November, its price for the first time since December 2017 rose above $ 18,000. By January 1, 2021, the value of the currency reached $ 29,400, while on the same date in 2020 it was at the level of $ 7,200. On April 12, the bitcoin price rose to a historic high of $ 64,800, after which it began to fall. Today at 11:30 Moscow time, it cost $ 45,300, follows from the data of the Binance exchange.
.