According to the European Central Bank (ECB) board member, “Bitcoin” needs to be regulated and even taxed.
President of the Austrian Central Bank Oesterreichische Nationalbank Ewald Nowotny said in an interview with the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that everyone involved in a financial transaction should be clearly identified under the value-added tax (VAT).
The banker has potential uses in money laundering, according to the Daily Mail. Here’s what they said about their concerns:
“To combat money laundering, we have decided to stop printing 500 euro notes. We set up strict rules at every little savings club, and then we started watching people carelessly launder money with Bitcoin around the world.”
Nowotny‘s comments, ECB board member Benoit Cœuré told Caixin Global that Bitcoin is very new and is a bubble. Like his Austrian peer, Cœuré emphasized that one of the main problems plaguing Bitcoin is related to tax evasion and money laundering.
Both bankers declared that Bitcoin is not a currency. Cœuré added that investors will not be able to use it as a payment instrument. The technology is still too young for meaningful application, as central banks around the world are figuring out how to use distributed ledger technology to update or replace their existing financial systems, the official said. .
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