Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has taken a side-swipe at Facebook’s (FB) cryptocurrency project Libra and others like it.
“The bar is set very high for private stablecoins, and I don’t think they have met that bar,” Bailey said during a virtual conference for central bankers on Thursday organised by the European Central Bank.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies tied to the value of an underlying asset, such as a national currency, in order to bring price stability. They were created in response to the wildly fluctuating value of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC-USD). The price volatility meant cryptocurrencies were attractive for investment but unsuitable for use as money in everyday transactions.