Mark Carney has called to end the "anarchy" of cryptocurrencies being used for criminal activities and warned against viewing as them true currencies.

He said that cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, fail to store value, are difficult and expensive to use for purchases, and are no use as a unit of account - all of the usual definitions of a currency.

So far bitcoin has proven to be a “a global speculative mania” rather than a useful new invention, he said, warning it faces a "pretty brutal reckoning".

In a detailed attack on the digital currencies, the Governor of the Bank of England said the fashionable assets “exhibited the classic hallmarks of bubbles” with soaring valuations “reliant in part on finding the greater fool.”