Bitcoin (BTC) Meets the ECB’s Reserve Criteria, Community Counters Lagarde’s Opposition

The crypto community has criticized Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, for her opposition to a Bitcoin[BTC] reserve among member countries.

The crypto community has pushed back against European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde’s recent statement that Bitcoin (BTC) is unlikely to become a reserve asset for any G7 member country.

In a press conference on Monday, Lagarde said that reserves should be “liquid, secure and safe and not be plagued by suspicion of money laundering or criminal activity.”

"I'm quite confident that Bitcoin will not enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the general council,” she added.

However, several crypto community members have pointed out that Bitcoin meets the criteria highlighted by Lagarde.

“Reserves have to be liquid. SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) – trades around 22 bn USD in volume per day. Bitcoin just had 54 bn USD in trading volume over the past 24 hours,” Bitwise Europe Head of Research Andre Dragosch wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

Dragosch also noted that Bitcoin is secured by miners, forming the most decentralized network with no counterparty risk.

"To corrupt Bitcoin's system, you would need 20B+. I don't know about you, but I find an asset that would cost 20B to corrupt to be relatively safe,” he added.

Highlighting the 2024 Chainalysis report, Dragosch noted that crypto made up less than 1% of crime-related cases.

"Only 0.14% of all on-chain transactions are related to illicit activities, including money laundering. Bitcoin is only a fraction of that,” the analysis showed.

Several users also pointed out that the Bitcoin network secures over $2 trillion in wealth and has never been hacked.

"Maybe she meant to say Bitcoin is too good to be kept in reserves. It belongs in the hands of the people (decentralized],” another user commented.

Lagarde's comment comes in the wake of the Czech Republic's recent move to diversify its national reserve by adding BTC.

Earlier this week, Czech Central Bank Governor Ales Michl reiterated the bank's intention to add BTC to its reserves if approved.

"If the proposal is approved by the Czech government and Parliament, the central bank will add a small amount of gold and Bitcoin to its reserves, which are currently valued at around $60 billion and consist almost entirely of foreign currencies,” a Bloomberg report noted on Monday.

It remains to be seen whether Michl will back down on BTC after Lagarde's caution. In the meantime, Polymarket odds of another country adopting BTC briefly soared over +70%.