An exceptional panel was gathered on the stage of the Louvre auditorium in Paris, this Tuesday, or at least on the screen, because several participants were by videoconference, including the highly anticipated Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB ), and Jerome Powell, his counterpart at the US Federal Reserve. They had come to talk about cryptocurrencies, or rather about “crypto-assets”as François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, who assumed the role of moderator at their round table, liked to recall, because bitcoins and others corners are not “currencies” for them.
“Crypto-assets are purely speculative assets and certainly not means of payment or stores of value”, said Christine Lagarde. They nevertheless call for a regulation on which Europe is already working. “Same risks, same regulation”added Jerome Powell, who also pointed out that this “world without borders” required international coordination.
Respond to the request
The challenge for these august institutions, however, is also to respond to a demand for fast and easy-to-use means of payment that increasingly represent, whatever they think, certain cryptocurrencies: stablecoins a fortiorii.e. digital assets indexed to a value, for example an official currency. “If the society asks for it, we should be able to supply it”stressed Agustín Carstens, Director General of the Bank for International Settlements.
But neither the euro zone nor the United States seem very advanced on a central bank digital currency, unlike China, which has already been experimenting with its e-yuan since 2021. “We are not ahead of our time”conceded Christine Lagarde. “Stablecoins are promising provided they are fully collateralized”she said again while pleading to get to work, otherwise “we risk losing our role as anchor”. A prototype of the digital euro is currently under study, but still poorly defined, except that it must be used “Instant, easy, contactless and above all between individuals”. It is also designed in such a way that “Banks are part of the system”. This statement by Christine Lagarde suggests that there is no question of authorizing users to manage the equivalent of a private key, i.e. their own wallet, without resorting to an establishment (former or new).
On the other side of the Atlantic, Jerome Powell was less enthusiastic about a central bank digital dollar. For the President of the Fed, the question is already: “Should stablecoins be used more widely? » If that is the case, “in monetary creation, we believe that the Fed must [continuer à] play a role “. In other words, it excludes letting crypto players control monetary policy. And to anticipate what is expected of him: “The general public will look at a private currency and assume it’s good money, with the endorsement of the Fed, that an asset will always be there. »
Passage through the customer knowledge box
As for anonymity, he responds that a Fed white paper on the digital dollar has already provided “protection of privacy”but “identity verification, so it wouldn’t be anonymous”. In fact, exchanges with the main platforms today require a procedure that lifts the veil on the identity of the customer.
The European Union, for its part, is working to strengthen legislation on this point for all cryptocurrencies, and the outlines of the digital euro project suggest that transactions would not be more anonymous than those today. made by credit card.
In summary, the ideal stablecoin as imagined by the ECB or the Fed would be dependent on their monetary policy, would require a know-your-customer procedure, or even a banking intermediary. It seems that they therefore do not speak of “cryptocurrencies”.