Bitcoin could be an alternative to the U.S. Dollar Says, Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper, who was the former prime minister of Canada for nine years, feels that Bitcoin and other central bank digital currencies will replace the dollar. In an interview with investment service Cambridge House’s Jay Martin at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference today, Harper stated that this replacement of the dollar will come from Euro or Chinese Yuan.
He further exclaimed that either of these currencies can be a viable alternative currency. It is because of the long-term uncertainty over the value of the Euro and the “arbitrary measures” that the Chinese government will take with respect to the value of the Yuan:
“It’s hard to see what the alternative is to the U.S. dollar as the world’s major reserve currency. Other than gold, Bitcoin, a whole basket of things […] I think you’ll see the number of things that people use as reserves will expand, but the U.S. dollar will still be the bulk of it.”
Stephen further added he felt that the central bank digital currencies or CBDCs were inevitable to some degree, but they may be subject to monetary policies around the world. He was more concerned about central banks becoming “kind of a general banker” rather than just a financial monitor. He stated that
“Ultimately, if you have a digital currency and the purpose of the central bank is to control inflation and create a stable currency and priceability, then digital currency is just kind of an evolution of the marketplace. But if it’s part of a series of what I think are wild experiments as to the role of central banking, then it worries me a lot.”
Harper was the prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. After his departure, crypto and blockchain gained a lot of traction in the country as Canada introduced its first regulated cryptocurrency exchange in September. As per the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Timothy Lane, the bank is also moving ahead towards the development of a CBDC.
