First Central Financial institution in Europe Buys Bitcoin Months After ECB President Mentioned It Would By no means Enter Reserves

In January, European Central Financial institution (ECB) President Christine Lagarde stated, “Bitcoins gained’t enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the [ECB] Common Council.”

Nonetheless, lower than a yr later, the Czech Nationwide Financial institution (CNB) announced the acquisition of $1 million value of bitcoin and different digital belongings as a part of a pilot program.

Christine Lagarde insisted no European central financial institution would ever maintain #Bitcoin.

The Czech Nationwide Financial institution simply purchased $1 million value for its reserves. pic.twitter.com/cUWSot5XPB

— TFTC (@TFTC21) November 13, 2025

Whereas this bitcoin will not be held within the CNB’s official worldwide reserves, it’s now one step nearer to creating {that a} actuality. CNB Governor Aleš Michl previously told the Financial Times about his need to place as a lot as 5% of the central financial institution’s reserves into bitcoin.

For now, the CNB has created a “check portfolio” of digital belongings that features each bitcoin and quite a lot of U.S. dollar-derived tokens. The financial institution will report on its experiences with these digital belongings over the following few years. In keeping with Michl, evaluating Bitcoin’s potential use throughout the central financial institution’s reserves is certainly one of many goals of this new mission.

This newest transfer from the CNB will not be the primary time bitcoin has been a supply of embarrassment for Lagarde this yr, as simply final month, the ECB president was additionally confronted about previous statements relating to the cryptocurrency missing any type of intrinsic worth. Bitcoin ultimately went on a run from roughly $35,000 to $125,000 since these feedback had been made, and the crypto asset now sits across the $100,000 mark.

Jordy asking Lagarde about her opinion on Bitcoin this week. Legendary!

The longer this goes on and the longer Bitcoiners confront central bankers, the extra folks will get up. pic.twitter.com/9oTWQHKHk0

— Dr. Jan Wüstenfeld (@JanWues) October 6, 2025

“There isn’t any underlying worth to it,” Lagarde doubled down in the course of the current interview. “It might be that it prospers. It might be that it lasts perpetually. Nevertheless it might be that it collapses as nicely.”

Lagarde additionally stated bitcoin couldn’t function as some type of “digital gold,” however she does see promise in stablecoins or central bank-issued digital currencies. Notably, an ECB blog post additionally predicted the demise of Bitcoin in 2022 within the aftermath of the FTX catastrophe.

“Extra doubtless, nevertheless, [the recent stabilization around $20,000] is an artificially induced final gasp earlier than the street to irrelevance – and this was already foreseeable earlier than FTX went bust and despatched the bitcoin value to nicely beneath USD16,000,” the weblog publish erroneously predicted.

Whereas a lot of Bitcoin’s early historical past was centered on censorship-resistant funds, the event trajectory it has taken to date has clearly been extra centered on the digital gold use case. And certainly, stablecoins appear to have extra promise for funds over the quick time period, as indicated by Money App’s recent integration with the dollar-backed tokens, regardless of Blocks CEO Jack Dorsey being a infamous bitcoin maximalist. That stated, Block additionally sees stablecoins as extra much like conventional fintech than Bitcoin, so they don’t seem to be essentially associated in any method.

After all, when you think about belongings corresponding to Technique’s STRC and Tether’s USDT, it’s clear that new digital currencies or different varieties of secure belongings which can be at the very least partially backed by bitcoin could possibly be the following path ahead for bringing the advantages of this expertise to extra customers with out even realizing that bitcoin is concerned behind the scenes.

It’s turning into more and more clear to me that anticipating folks to undertake Bitcoin immediately is much like anticipating folks to run their very own electronic mail server as an alternative of utilizing Gmail.

Bitcoin service suppliers are the way in which ahead, at the very least for the foreseeable future. It is not the top of…

— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) October 11, 2025

Whereas some international locations have dabbled with bitcoin as a substitute for the fiat currency-dominated world monetary system, the actual fact of the matter is that the issuers of currencies such because the greenback and the euro nonetheless maintain super sway over the financial actions of smaller nations. For instance, El Salvador was persuaded to weaken its pro-bitcoin stance in change for a mortgage from the Worldwide Financial Fund.

Opinions differ by way of how america ought to cope with the emergence of bitcoin as a digital reserve asset that might probably compete with the U.S. greenback in that regard. Again in 2021, former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shared her view that bitcoin could possibly be an rising risk to U.S. greenback dominance. U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman has shared an analogous sentiment when railing towards bitcoin on the Home ground.

the video of @BradSherman‘s name to ban bitcoin is the most effective commercial for the digital asset i’ve seen in fairly a while (HT Oskar_Koch on Reddit) https://t.co/KeGCO0uXSh pic.twitter.com/VDF6XxBFre

— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) May 9, 2019

Alternatively, U.S. President Donald Trump and others have indicated that the mix of bitcoin with stablecoins may assist strengthen the U.S. greenback within the info age. Though Trump presently seems preoccupied with profiting from shitcoin sidequests.