The Central Bank of Poland has admitted that “it carried out a campaign on the issue of virtual currencies in social media;” in other words, they paid social media big shots in the country for propaganda against cryptocurrencies which alludes to market manipulation.
A Polish YouTuber, Marcin Dubiel, with around one million subscribers, was paid $30,000 by the Central Bank of Poland, in collaboration with the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, for propaganda to portray cryptocurrencies in a negative light.
Dubiel, whose video “I lost all my money” has half a million views, represents cryptocurrencies as a way to get rich quick, to only find out he had no money to pay for a date at a restaurant and was generally left penniless due to his cryptocurrency investments.
The video’s description box contains the hashtag #uważajnakryptowaluty, which is a website by Poland’s Central Bank and FCA that portrays digital currencies as risky, having no guarantee, and not classified as electronic money. Only two of those truly apply, as with cryptocurrency you are not guaranteed any gains, and it is certainly risky; but to argue it’s not electronic money would be silly.
Dubiel’s payment was not disclosed in his video, and the Central Bank of Poland did not issue any further comment.
Dubiel is just one among many others who received such payments, including Planeta Faktów, a YouTube channel with 1.5 million subscribers.
This comes after JP Morgan has released what has been dubbed a “Bitcoin Bible” for investors, in which JP Morgan concedes that cryptocurrencies aren’t going away anytime soon.
“CCs (cryptocurrencies) are unlikely to disappear completely and could easily survive in varying forms and shapes among players who desire greater decentralization, peer-to-peer networks, and anonymity, even as the latter is under threat.”
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, stated in January that he regretted calling Bitcoin a fraud and believes in the technology behind it.
Dimon has consistently made headlines calling Bitcoin a fraud, so much so that he faces a lawsuit for market manipulation in Sweden for his remarks. Will Poland’s Central Bank face similar charges?
Meanwhile, the rest of the central bankers have all developed their own opinion on cryptocurrencies with the lead head of the Bank for International Settlements, Agustín Carstens, calling for a “clampdown on cryptocurrencies “piggybacking” on mainstream institutions and becoming a “threat to financial stability.”
This comes as the G20 prepares a meeting where world leaders are expected to talk about cryptocurrency regulations in March, News Bitcoin reported.
The G20 includes central bankers and leaders from 19 countries and the European Union, spanning the entire globe: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.
As a reminder for the bankers, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi, admitted in September of last year that central banks have no power to regulate Bitcoinf: “it’s outside of our jurisdiction.”
Bitcoin is currently trading at [FIAT: $11,162.80] according to Coin Market Cap at the time of this report.
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