A Belgian MP has warned that Europe’s “biggest risk” may be failing to properly learn about and embrace Bitcoin.
During an interview with Cointelegraph, Christophe De Beukelaer explained that he decided last month to convert his entire salary (5,500 euros per month) for this year to Bitcoin in order to raise financial awareness, contribute to financial education within Belgium in particular and Europe in general, and to send a message that Bitcoin is a good store-of-value asset.
According to a report by Cointelegraph that was published on Wednesday (February 16), De Beukelaer, who first got into Bitcoin and blockchain in 2017, thinks there is a future in which crypto plays a “counterpart” to the traditional financial world. The Belgian politician warned that ignoring Bitcoin and failing to learn about crypto posed a significant risk for Europeans across the continent.
He said,
One of the biggest risks we have in Europe for the moment […] The political people don’t take time for this journey. They are very busy with the day-to-day administrations of the cities and the countries, but they don’t stop and say, OK, what’s happening now? What are the big evolutions coming in the next 10, 20, 50 years? And that’s the job.
He called lack of awareness about Bitcoin a “big problem,” and noted that Europe was in danger of falling behind China and the U.S. in the space of digital assets.
When asked why he had chosen Bitcoin instead of some other cryptocurrency, De Beukelaer replied that it is because Bitcoin is the oldest [and] the most stable protocol and maybe the only one that is fully decentralized and has the security provided by proof-of-work consensus.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.
Image Credit
Featured Image by “JoaquinAranoa” via Pixabay.com
