Felipe Medalla, Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines (BSP), told Forkast that the agency has no plans to ban digital assets.

According to him, there is little use for real payments in cryptocurrencies anymore due to the high volatility. Medalla also noted the damage bitcoin does to the environment.

“Useful use case [криптовалют] – avoiding being tracked by the government. The question is, what kind of social benefit does it bring?”, – said the head of the BSP.

Medalla believes that in most states, government is not ideal, but contributes to the public interest so “there is no need to weaken government”.

“Some crypto assets have lost almost two-thirds of their value in a very short time. So my advice is this: If you’re going to buy this, don’t invest money you can’t lose,” he explained.

The BSP Chairman spoke about the agency’s plans to test the national digital currency by the end of 2022. Lessons learned from the pilot project are used to guide the next steps in the development of the CBDC.

Recall that in January UnionBank, the largest bank in the Philippines, announced that it has launched the trading and storage of cryptocurrencies. The company did not specify an approximate release date.

Earlier, Changpeng Zhao, head of Binance, talked about the company’s plans to license it in the Philippines. In July, think tank Infrawatch PH urged the Ministry of Trade and Industry to launch an investigation into the bitcoin exchange for illegal marketing campaigns.

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