The Lieutenant Governor of the Bank of England, Jon Cunliffe, sees risks to the stability of the financial system in the growth of crypto assets. This year alone, global valuations of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets have risen by around 200 percent, from almost 800 billion dollars to around 2,300 billion dollars, 95 percent of which are not backed by real values. Five years ago the crypto market was only 16 billion - so it has grown more than a hundredfold. Cunliffe puts the current crypto market volume of 2.3 trillion dollars in relation to the roughly 250 trillion dollars of the entire global financial system. "But as the financial crisis has shown, it doesn't take a large share of the financial sector to trigger financial stability problems - subprime securities were only rated at around 1,Valued at $ 2 trillion, ”said Cunliffe in a speech this week in London.

While the central bank vice chairman praised cryptotechnology on the one hand because it offered "the prospect of radical improvements in the financial system", he expressed concerns about the rapid growth.

"Most of these assets have no intrinsic value and are therefore vulnerable to large price adjustments," said Cunliffe, who is responsible for financial stability at the Bank of England.

Bitcoin prices have dropped 10 percent more than 30 times in one day, and on one day in March the price even dropped 40 percent.

Financial stability risks could grow rapidly

As Cunliffe points out, the crypto world is beginning to connect with the traditional financial system. By this he meant that traditional banks, funds and investors will also buy the new assets. The central banker sees with concern that one is now seeing more and more "leveraged" players who finance their purchases with credit. It is worrying that this crypto world is unregulated. "The financial stability risks are currently limited," said Cunliffe's assessment. "But they could grow very quickly," he added.

Cunliffe takes part in a discussion recently led by many politicians and bank officials. In an interview with the CNBC television channel, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that cryptocurrencies may currently be suitable for transferring funds, but not for trading commodities. Morgan Stanley boss James Gorman was optimistic on Wednesday: "I don't think crypto is a fad." He doesn't know where the value should be, but the technology is here to stay. In doing so, he counteracts Jamie Dimon, head of the JP Morgan bank, who a few days earlier had described Bitcoin as "worthless" for him personally

Meanwhile, the markets celebrated the prospect that, according to media reports, two crypto futures-denominated ETFs will go on sale in the United States next week without objection from the SEC.

On Friday, Bitcoin passed the $ 60,000 mark for the first time since April.