Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said monitoring of crypto would be "more effective" than an outright ban.
- Hoekstra, the Netherlands' minister of finance since 2017 and leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal party, said there is no sense in a ban that would only apply in the Netherlands, NU.nl reported Sunday.
- Monetary policy in the country is governed by the European Central Bank, and therefore a unilateral ban in a single eurozone state would have limited effect.
- Monitoring and supervising cryptocurrency would be preferable: "My observation is now that that is more effective than a total ban in the Netherlands," Hoekstra said.
- The minister was responding to calls made Friday by Pieter Hasekamp, head of the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, for a total ban.
- "The eventual collapse of the crypto bubble is inevitable," Hasekamp said. "The longer we wait, the greater the negative consequences of the eventual crash."