On Thursday, Carolyn Rogers—Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor—brought to light that the number of Canadians who possess crypto assets has been growing rapidly. Per the senior official, many people do not understand the inherent risk of investing in products like Bitcoin, and in such an environment, she highlighted, the efforts to regulate the sector need to start keeping pace.
With rising Bitcoin adoption, investors ought to be shielded from its risks
Talking to Reuters in an interview on Thursday, Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers said,
“This is an area that is still small, but it’s growing really rapidly. And it is largely unregulated… We don’t want to wait until it gets a lot larger before we bring regulatory controls in place.”
Per a recent Bank of Canada report, the share of Canadians who own Bitcoin more than doubled to 13% in 2021 from 5% in 2020. Opining on the gray side of the same, Rogers said,
“Like any asset that’s jumping around in price, people see an opportunity for quick gains. Our concern is they may not understand the risks. They may not even understand that it’s not a regulated area.”
Bitcoin adoption—as a whole, all over the world—has been on the rise. In fact, with the current accumulation trend in play, historical feats are being achieved of late.
Alongside, it is a known fact that volatility is the name of the game in the crypto market. Crunches now and then lead to price shocks, and as a result, end up impacting the broader financial system. To shield market participants from the risks, the industry needs to be regulated and re-emphasized Rogers, but the challenge is sorting out just how that will be done.
Drawing parallels with the capital markets, she concluded,
“These are somewhat like banking assets, somewhat like capital markets. One of the challenges is to figure out how do they fit in the current regime, and if they don’t fit, how do we adjust the regime so that they will fit.”