The National Bank of Poland will not consider holding Bitcoin reserves “under any circumstances,” according to the central bank’s president, Adam Glapiński.
Speaking at a press conference, Glapiński said that a given asset “must be absolutely secure” for the NBP to consider adding it to its reserves.
Glapiński compared Bitcoin unfavourably to gold, which he says helped the bank’s reserves increase in value by 22% last year.
However, the NBP’s president didn’t completely dismiss the cryptocurrency, noting that “there is a lot to be said about Bitcoin,” even if his bank doesn’t believe it could serve as a “permanent, safe element” of its holdings.
“You can buy a lot and gain a lot, as well as lose a lot,” he said. “However, we prefer something certain.”
Such caution isn’t particularly surprising to advocacy groups promoting the idea of BTC reserves, with Matthew Pines—a National Security Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute—telling Decrypt that central banks are usually conservative institutions by design.
“Their legal mandate is usually very narrow: stable prices, full employment, and financial stability,” he says. “They also view currencies as inherently a sovereign prerogative and closely husband the legal monopoly granted to them by the state to issue state-backed money.”
Yet despite current resistance, Glapiński’s remarks come a week after the Czech Central Bank approved a proposal to study the possibility of investing in BTC.
Glapiński’s remarks come a week after the Czech Central Bank approved a proposal to study the possibility of investing in BTC.
The study could publish by August or September, yet it has met with some degree of resistance within Czechia, with finance minister Zbyněk Stanjura saying that he would not recommend a national Bitcoin reserve, and that sometimes he tells his “colleagues not to think out loud on the microphone.”
Such criticism forced the central bank’s deputy governor, Eva Zamrazilová, to come out with public clarifications, stating on Czech TV that the study would consider other investments in addition to Bitcoin.
Zamrazilová also seemingly retreated on previous suggestions that the Czech Central Bank could put as much as 5% of its reserves into Bitcoin.
“Such a proposal has never been discussed by the Bank Board,” she clarified, adding that the study is more of an exploration than an indication of policy.
The possibility of Bitcoin reserves has also invited criticism from the European Central Bank, with ECB President Christine Lagarde recently criticizing BTC along much the same lines as Adam Glapiński.
“There is a view around the table of the governing council […] that reserves have to be liquid, that reserves have to be secure, that they have to be safe,” she said at a press conference.
Yet the mere fact that central banks have begun talking about Bitcoin in this context may signal a pivotal shift in climate, with noises in Europe following from the more concrete possibility of a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the US.
Within days of taking office, President Donald Trump created a working group to study creating a BTC reserve, while more recently he has called for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund.
Nearly a third of US states are reviewing legislation that would create their own Bitcoin reserves, with Utah advancing a Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments bill to its senate in recent days.
And in Matthew Pines’ view, such progress won’t be “at all be impacted” by disapproval in Poland and the wider European region, with the US potentially more interested in keeping pace with more Bitcoin-friendly jurisdictions.
“The US is closely watching as other nations (especially in the Gulf and Asia) consider Bitcoin as a national asset,” he says.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include comments from Bitcoin Policy Institute National Security Fellow Matthew Pines.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
