The great world leaders are now paying precise attention to the most intriguing cryptocurrency on the market. Among them are the British Prime Minister Theresa May and Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund Managing Director. Both of them have spoken about bitcoin this week in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is taking place traditionally.
Though both of them spoke quite carefully about the crypto asset, there has been some tension over it as Lagarde expressed her concern over bitcoin’s violent energy consumption, whereas May focused on BTC’s connection with illicit activities.
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May’s Warning About Bitcoin & Criminals
Recently, communicating with the Chief Editor of Bloomberg John Micklethwait on January 25, Theresa May give a hint that the UK government might view the ways of bitcoin regulation. The reason for this is that, according to May, the most known digital coin can be used by malicious actors unlawfully.
“In areas like cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, we should be looking at these very seriously,” said May.
By the way, as it was stated by one of the latest pieces of research, 25% of bitcoin users are involved in illegal activities. It is not a secret that some people use bitcoin for money laundering, purchase of prohibited weapons and drugs as well as for financing terrorism worldwide. So no wonder that governments all over the globe have started eyeing digital assets and even curbing on them, as in China or South Korea, for example.
Moreover, authorities are concerned that lots of innocent people can be hurt due to unprotected nature of cryptocurrency. With the desire to get quick revenues or make fast transactions, many people can lose money facing fraudsters, especially when they pile huge sums into bitcoin. And that is apparent as the coin grows in price from time to time.
During the interview, May emphasized that the rise in this cryptocurrency has been progressively developing. At the same time, the UK Prime added that after Brexit works out the country would be glad to embrace lots of tech firms setting up there.
Energetic Crisis
On the other hand, Christine Lagarde has been worried about the energy that the production of bitcoin swallows up. The IMF leader said that digital money mining consumes too much power and the scope of it comes nearly to the electricity consumption of G-20.
“The Bitcoins mining, which is this accelerated and augmented use of computers to actually determine the value and incentive the functioning of the mechanism, is energy angry. And we figure that in 2018 if it continues that system will actually consume as much electricity as Argentina,” said Lagarde.
She also emphasized that bitcoin itself is unrest at the times of global warming, as so much coal is being utilized in China for mining energy supply.
As Bloomberg reported earlier, in the past year the energy consumed by bitcoin miners all over the world has increased by three times, surpassing the rate of 37 gigawatt-hours per day. That is equal to approximately thirty 1.2-gigawatt nuclear reactors functioning at their fullest.
