Although the most famous cryptocurrency – bitcoin –lost its value in the last couple of months along with another ten of the most popular ones, their popularity isn’t declining. However, almost all central banks from the region don’t have trust in them and they warn that investing in cryptocurrencies is extremely risky.
According to the Governor of the Central Bank of Montenegro, Radoje Žugić, a cryptocurrency is a speculative paper.
“A lot more than the money is. This segment isn’t regulated, there’s no supervision, no control and, therefore, every investment entails risk for the investor. The Central bank of Montenegro has already taken a proactive attitude about this matter. That’s the way of earning, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s highly speculative and that means somebody earns and somebody loses”, says Žugić.
Many banks from the region have been quite passive regarding this matter but they still have negative attitude towards it. The attitude of the National Bank of Macedonia is that a cryptocurrency is only means.
The National Bank of Serbia points out that the legislation of the country recognized the importance of cryptocurrencies for the country in the sense of managing risk from money laundering and financing terrorism.
Cryptocurrencies are not issued by the central bank and it can’t guarantee that they have value. Therefore, there aren’t any mechanisms of legal protection of the users. Anyone who deals with virtual currencies assumes full responsibility and faces financial or any other risks which my incur.
