Even Christine Lagarde’s Son Doesn’t Listen to Her Warnings About Crypto

Cryptocurrency ECB EU Investing Regulation

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...

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October 23, 2023 09:00 EDT

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Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), has stated that cryptoassets should be regulated and are worth nothing – but has admitted that her son is a crypto investor.

Lagarde was speaking during an episode of the long-running Dutch TV talk show “College Tour,” which aired on Sunday. The show involves a high-level guest taking questions from an audience of students.

During the show, the interviewer asked attendees if any of them had lost any money in recent crypto investments following the latest price drop.

Een student in de zaal heeft 7000 euro verloren aan crypto. “Dat is pijnlijk”, zegt Christine @Lagarde in #CollegeTour.👇@KroNcrv pic.twitter.com/NDDzseljO2

— College Tour (@collegetour_nl) May 22, 2022

One student answered that he had lost some USD 7,420 in a cardano (ADA) investment, to which Lagarde replied: 

“That hurts.”

Per De Telegraaf and Bloomberg, the ECB chief further stated:

“What worries me about crypto is that people who don’t realize they can lose everything are investing in it. I worry about people who assume [crypto investments] will pay off, who don’t know the risks, who will lose everything and will be very disappointed. That’s why I think it should be regulated.”

But there was a twist to Lagarde’s cautionary tale, as the ECB head said that she does “follow” the fate of crypto “very carefully” – as her son bucked her advice and invested in tokens, adding:

“He’s a free man.”

Lagarde denied owning coins herself, though, explaining that she wanted to “practice what I preach.”

She further expanded that her “very humble assessment” is that crypto was “worth nothing,” was “based on nothing,” and added:

“There is no underlying asset to act as an anchor of safety.”

She went on to speak of the EU’s own plans to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the economic bloc – a digital euro. The new ECB coin, she claimed, would be “vastly different than many of those things.”

Lagarde has previously called for bitcoin (BTC) to be regulated. In 2021, she called BTC a “highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible money laundering activity.”

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