European Central Bank executive board member Benoît Cœuré said this week that blockchain is promising – but that bitcoin is "the evil spawn of the financial crisis."
Speaking at the Economics of Payments IX conference on Thursday, Cœuré, who is also the chair of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures at the Bank for International Settlements, addressed the rising awareness of cryptocurrencies and their use as part of a broader speech on the 10 year anniversary of "the Lehman debacle."
"In more ways than one, bitcoin is the evil spawn of the financial crisis," he said, noting that the bitcoin genesis block included a headline about the U.K.'s chancellor bailing out banks.