ECB Chief Rejects Bitcoin for Reserves While Rest of Europe Mulls Embracing It

• Christine Lagarde “confident” EU banks won’t adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset.
• EU members Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic are considering adding Bitcoin to their foreign reserves.
• The ECB says it needs a Digital Euro to compete with U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde has expressed confidence that Bitcoin (BTC) “will not enter the reserves” of banks in the European Union (EU) despite several EU countries currently considering BTC as a foreign reserve asset.

Lagarde on BTC Reserves

During a Jan. 30, 2025 conference , Lagarde was questioned on whether or not the ECB is looking into placing BTC into its foreign currency reserves, akin to the national Bitcoin Strategic Reserve pledged by Donald Trump and his pro-crypto administration.

“Reserves have to be liquid, reserves have to be secure, they have to be safe, they should not be plagued by the suspicion of money laundering or other criminal activities.”

By this, she implies that BTC fails to meet all of the above, yet somehow regular cash does. She expresses confidence that Bitcoin won’t be held as a reserve asset by central banks under the remit of the European Council.

However, European nations are still considering the idea. In November 2024, Poland and Slovenia explored the option.

In 2025, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic all tabled BTC reserve proposals.

Interestingly, despite a U.S. ban on central bank digital currencies (CBDC) thanks to Trump’s executive order on crypto, the EU continues with its Digital Euro project.

The ECB has stressed it is essential to create the Euro stablecoin to compete with U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.

Bitcoin Reserves

In the U.S., calls to establish a national Bitcoin strategic reserve continue to pile up as the pro-crypto spark of Donald Trump’s administration fuels ambitions to make the America the crypto capital of the world.

Lagarde’s comments come just days after the Czech National Bank proposed allocating 5% of the nation’s public funds to BTC.

According to the bank’s Chief, Aleš Michl, BTC is a volatile asset, but growing institutional and government adoption has given him confidence in its long-term value.

This didn’t get past Lagarde, who said she’d had a “good conversation” with her Czech Republic colleague, who she believes is as “convinced as we all are” that reserves need to be “liquid, secure, and safe.”