European Central Bank (ECB) criticizes Bitcoin

Bitcoin is of the devil! Sounds crazy, perhaps, but that's how new Twitter posts from the European Central Bank (ECB) urgently warn against cryptocurrencies. It's criticism for criticism's sake.

A central bank also conducts marketing campaigns. Although they have a monopoly, they face image problems. Therefore, customer confidence must always be strengthened or regained. On the other hand, this also means discrediting competing products. One such competing product is Bitcoin.

ECB as Twitter influencer

The central bank has made a new attempt via the ECB's Twitter account. Executive board member Fabio Panetta has again been chosen as anti-Bitcoin ambassador.

The fact that Bitcoin has appreciated against the euro and all other fiat currencies have proved very unstable over the years, this is an Interesting point of view. According to this point of view, the euro should also be very unstable since it has appreciated more than 20 percent against the Turkish lira in just four weeks - quite volatile.

Panetta also criticizes Bitcoin for being centralized. An exciting view for someone who works at a central bank. But all kidding aside, as exaggerated as the criticism is, the Twitter posts show a lack of realism.

Blackrock and Co. apparently ignorant

The message the ECB sends with such postings makes Bitcoin proponents seem naive and ignorant. Given Bitcoin's academic, social and economic penetration, this is an unfounded assumption.

Especially since, in the wake of current institutional adoption (see Blackrock with its Bitcoin ETF application or Fidelity with its crypto exchange EDX) such statements probably hurt the sender more than the addressee. Or is Panetta saying that elite Wall Street graduates have no clue about finance? Less and less people in finance are likely to believe this statement.

The ECB and its monetary monotheism

But not only is the message problematic, so is the style. The rhetoric seems to lean heavily on the 10 Commandments and the "Our Father." Instead of "Lead us not into temptation...," the message on Twitter: "Resist the temptation of public cryptocurrencies". In a next post is pointed out the unique selling point of the euro in the style of "thou shalt have no other gods beside me."

Beliefs rather than factual arguments are provided by the Twitter messages intended to bolster confidence in the euro and, in perspective, in the digital euro, while Bitcoin is classified as the devil's stuff.

In the service of objectivity, the intention is not at all to ridicule the ECB with these pointed formulations. Rather, the intention is to make it clear that the European Central Bank is distancing itself. With such clumsy euro marketing campaigns, the central bank only harms itself in the long run. Instead of discrediting other "products," it would be better to work on its own performance and its own promise of quality and monetary stability.