Europe’s central bank wants nothing to do with cryptocurrency (for now)

Europe’s central bank (ECB) won’t be touching cryptocurrency any time soon. Its president Mario Draghi shot down hopes of an EU-sanctioned digital currency, criticising blockchain tech for being too young and fragile to be useful.

“The ECB and the Eurosystem currently have no plans to issue a central bank digital currency,” Draghi disclosed to the European Parliament. He then proceeded to declare that blockchains still “require substantial further development,” and saw no “concrete need” for Europe to issue an official digital currency, Reuters reports.

Blockchain gurus often flout high-powered finance as a primary use-case for cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Indeed, the central banks of several nations are already toying with launching sovereign cryptocurrencies, including Venezuela, the Marshall Islands, Thailand, and Sweden.