Augustín Carstens, the Director General of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), calls Bitcoin a " combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental catastrophe "and asked the central banks to regulate cryptocurrencies more tightly during a speech at Goethe University on February 6.

BIS is known as the " Central Banks, " because it provides only banking services to central banks and other international organizations.

In August 2017, when Carstens was head of the Central Bank of Mexico, he argued that Bitcoin was not a central bank. Currency, but a commodity and warned against its potential use for cybercrime.

Carsten's recent comments Tuesday morning come after both the traditional and crypto markets have seen a significant decline since Monday Feb. 5. This week, several major banks, including Lloyds Banking Group and JP Morgan Chase, have banned the purchase of cryptocurrency by credit card.

In Carsten's opinion, the global interest in cryptocurrencies is just a speculative mania "And so strict regulation by central banks is necessary: ​​

"If the authorities do not act preemptively, cryptocurrencies could become more interconnected with the main financial system and become a threat to financial stability. "

Carsten considers" alarming "that some banks release Bitcoin ATMs because it considers that the potential use of Bitcoin for illegal transactions is too high for allow currency to be associated with traditional financial institutions:

"If the only" business case "is the use for illicit or illegal transactions, central banks can not Not allowing such tokens to build on much of the same infrastructure institution that serves the overall financial system and freeload on the trust that it provides. "

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Elliptic, a Bitcoin Forensics company, released a report in late January that showed that less than 1% of all Bitcoin transactions accounted for bleaching of money.