This post was most recently updated on March 21st, 2019

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently held an #AskECB event on Twitter and invited ECB chief economist Peter Praet to have a direct dialogue with netizens. The question was initiated by the netizen and Praet gave the answer.

Bitcoin enthusiasts certainly won’t miss this opportunity. A user named RainDogDance asks the EBC Chief Economist about his or the EBC opinion about bitcoins:

Praet: The technology behind it looks promising for many industries. But bitcoin is not money #AskECB https://t.co/rsNGOXAKI2 — European Central Bank (@ecb) March 12, 2019

Praet reply agrees that the is that the underlying technology is promising but bitcoin is not money.

This evaluation of the ECB immediately caused reactions in the Crypto Twiter community. A crypto analyst with almost 100k followers named Joseph Young said:

Bitcoin is “not money” because ECB can’t print more of it https://t.co/WfJOlpkd01 — Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) March 14, 2019



Others have posted a picture that has recently been recently circulating on social media: Streets in Venezuela covered by their local currency Bolivar which is almost worthless because of hyperinflation. People need to bring piles of cash when they go out shopping, and foreign currency exchange is almost impossible. Therefore, many people in Venezuela use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of fiat.

If #Bitcoin means the end for the current monetary regime, then central banks have a one-time opportunity to use their seigniorage power for one last time and try to acquire as much Bitcoin as they can before their monopoly money becomes this: pic.twitter.com/5J4trD6ex7 — Juuso Ilomaki (@Juuso_I) March 14, 2019

In addition, in the same question and answer session, the ECB stated an interesting thing:

Praet: As a central bank, we can create money to buy assets #AskECB https://t.co/zTQuU4y1ch — European Central Bank (@ecb) March 12, 2019

In this regard, many Users posted gifs with memes ridiculing ECB is a scam. User Dov Bitcoin posting a sheep gif said:

People asking the ECB if they should buy bitcoin is like sheep asking the wolf if they should buy a fence.

In fact, regarding bitcoin, ECB has repeatedly expressed its views. According to info posted on their website, ECB’s attitude towards Bitcoin and blockchain is as follows:

Bitcoin is too volatile, no one is backing it, users are not protected and it is not a generally accepted form of payment. While Blockchain/distributed ledger technology has great potential, but the central bank will not adopt it for the time being.