Accoriding to reuters the european central bank ECB is considering regulating the use of digital currencies . governing council member ewald nowotny commented ;

We are asking ourselves if legislators or central banks should intervene as happened in china where they banned the use of cryptocurrencies because they consider them fraudulent .

On Bans And Other Schemes

It should be noted that never banned the use of cryptocurrencies rather the country shut down digital currency exchanges and forbade the launching of ICOs . that is a far cry from a ban on use which would be impossible to enforce . one also wonders about the wisdom of basing europes regulatory scheme on actions taken by the worlds largest communist country .

Fortuantely nowotny realizes that the cryptocurrency market is small enough not to destabilize the traditional financial system . regulators feel significantly less urgency and are more inclined to take a laissez faire approach when there is no risk of systemic collapse. nowotny further stated .

Trial And Error

Based on the above statement it is possible that the ECB could take a buyer beware attitude toward digital currencies rather than attempting outright regulation or bans . governments around the world are struggling to cope with blockchain technology and the digital currencies it has spawned . regulators seem to be thoroughly confused with nations like china taking a highly restrictive approach but countries like japan officially making bitcoin legal money .