Pieter Hasekamp, director of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, made a striking appeal this morning. “The Netherlands must now ban bitcoin,” he writes in an essay in Het Financieele Dagblad. But both inside and outside the crypto world, there seems to be little enthusiasm for a ban.
Hasekamp, who seems to make the call in a personal capacity and was not available for further explanation, mentions several reasons for a ban in his piece. He believes that cryptocurrencies cannot pass for money, such as euros and dollars, partly because it fluctuates too much in price and cannot be used everywhere as a means of payment.
In addition, he points to concerns about fraud and financial instability. The value of bitcoin goes up and down considerably, and with other coins the fluctuations are even greater. This is mainly due to people who buy coins to speculate: they hope that their purchase will increase in value so that they can quickly sell them again at a profit. This causes dangerous instability.
“The eventual blowing of the crypto bubble is inevitable,” said the CPB director. “Recent developments show that it is time to act: the longer we wait, the greater the negative consequences of the final crash. The ultimate step is a total ban on the production, trading and even possession of cryptocurrencies.” ‘Ban not feasible’
But Hasekamp receives little support. Not least because a ban does not seem feasible. “The call surprised me,” says Teunis Brosens, who tracks digital currencies for ING. For example, a ban does not seem technically feasible to him.
“Providers of exchange services or wallets for cryptocurrencies could theoretically be banned. But not the infrastructure itself, such as the blockchain, wallets that people hold themselves and services that are offered abroad – that’s just not going to work.”
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It’s not an office you can invade.
He receives, not surprisingly, support from Patrick van der Meijde, chairman of the Association of Bitcoin Companies. He calls a ban a bad idea and totally unworkable. “Bitcoin is ‘open source’, it’s software that people can run. It’s not an office you can invade.”
Moreover, there are already many tools available to tackle problems with cryptocurrencies, Brosens emphasizes. “Cryptocurrency scams are not allowed, because scams are not allowed anyway. You don’t need a ban for that.”
The ING economist also emphasizes that there are major differences between all cryptocurrencies. “I understand the concern: of the thousands of crypto coins that are out there, the majority is nonsense, pyramid schemes, you just don’t want to be in there. But there are also beautiful things in between such as bitcoin and ethereum.”
Bart Mol, of the podcast Satoshi Radio, agrees. “I also see the pump-and-dumps and all the coins where people blindly get in and lose their money. Only for me that is separate from bitcoin.” A ban also seems unrealistic to Mol. He calls the proposal “pretty short-sighted”. New law in the making
What has not yet been arranged is the supervision of cryptocurrency trading. While the stock exchange can, for example, be controlled by the AFM, it is not yet about crypto trading. This makes it easier to cheat and manipulate with impunity, especially with smaller coins.
Nevertheless, the European Union is already working on this. New legislation should bring cryptocurrency trading under the supervision of the supervisory authorities in the Member States. Trading platforms themselves have recently been subject to stricter requirements to combat money laundering. DNB not in favour of a ban
Under such conditions, a total ban on bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies is also not necessary according to the Dutch central bank DNB. “The current proposal allows cryptos, but within limits and we can agree with that.”
The AFM itself also points out that they may soon be able to carry out supervision. Whether it does not find a ban necessary, leaves a spokesman in the middle.
“Like CPB, the AFM continues to warn investors about the risks of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the AFM points to investors’ own responsibility,” the spokesperson said.
