Introduction
On 25th and 26th October 2023 the European Board of Directors of ECB (European Central Bank) under the leadership of Christine Lagarde organised a meeting hosted by the Governor of the Greek Central Bank in Athens, Greece to discuss and take decisions about the future European Currency strategy and policies.
The Greek Prime Minister Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis was also invited in the meeting and he posted a relevant tweet on X. explaining that since the previous meeting of ECB in Athens in 2008 many things have changed ...towards a brighter future.
During the press conference that followed the meeting, Lagarde praised the recent progress of the Greek economy after several turbulent years and a deep financial crisis that started as a result of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the near default of French and German banking institutions who had loaned billions of (unlimited) Euros to Greek, Irish, Italian and Portuguese banking institutions and started requesting their money back. For the history, the Greek financial crisis resulted on the "rescue" of the Greek economy from the IMF (as it happened in Rep. of Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus) and lasted several years causing serious problems in the Greek society. Specifically, Lagarde commented that Greece once a troublemaker of the European economy has been evolved anymore to a success story of European Financial Progress.
I won't make any specific comments about the praises of the Greek economy progress from Christine Lagarde. What it is obvious after looking 15 years back is that indeed the financial situation of Greece is much better than the past, major changes and reforms have happened in the Greek financial system in order to support this progress and in fact jobs and basic salary rates have been increased especially during the busy touristic seasons. Personally, after passing 10 years abroad in order to "survive" since I was hit badly from unemployment, I have decided to return back and make another attempt to progress my professional career in Greece.
The Digital Euro
In crypto-matters, one of the announcements that took place prior and during the meeting of the ECB governing Council in Athens, was the announcement of the progress of the Digital Euro project according to the press release of the European Central Bank "Eurosystem proceeds to next phase of digital euro project" and the article "ECB officials move to "preparation phase" for digital euro" on Cointelegraph.
Specifically it was announced the 3 following bullets:
- Governing Council to start digital euro preparation phase following conclusion of two-year investigation phase on design and distribution of a digital euro
- Preparation phase will lay foundations for a potential digital euro, with work to include finalising rulebook and selecting providers to develop platform and infrastructure
- Preparation phase will pave way for potential future decision on issuing a digital euro
...widening the road ahead of the introduction of a Digital Euro controlled by the European Central Bank and the global financial establishment which tries to adopt itself to the financial revolution of the monetisation of the blockchain technology as it was envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto on the paper "A peer-to-per electronic cash system".
The Response of Yanis Varoufakis
In one of his rare appearances, the famous and popular economist and Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis provided a response to this announcement through an interview to the independent military and political website militaire.gr, which I wanted to translate and provide to the Publish0x non-Greek audience. In his interview Mr. Varoufakis emphasized in his own words that:
"The digital Euro will become a reality because Mrs. Lagarde is completely dependent on the European bankers and especially on the German central bank. Even the great idea of the digital euro will be implemented in such a way that it minimizes the benefits for the many.
The digital euro would make sense if it was not linked to bank accounts, if it could act as a digital wallet for each of us where our salary would go and from there we would pay for our purchases WITHOUT commission.
Today the banks are holding hostage the citizens who are obliged to have a bank account and pay a commission for everything while giving nothing as interest on deposits. In a normal digital euro banks would be forced to give decent interest rates to attract deposits. But the future is a digital currency without dependence on bankers. This was exactly the Demetra system that we proposed and it was so slandered."
For the history, Mr Varoufakis when he was Minister of finance of the fake Leftist Government of Syriza-ANEL in 2015 that led to a referendum which was turned down from the Greek Government and the Eurozone leaders, supported a Greek exit from Euro and the introduction of a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" based on the Greek taxation system (TAXIS) called Demetra.
Personal Thoughts
Yanis Varoufakis is 100% right!
Few years ago, Ι posted an article with title "My comments on the article A viable Bitcoin is as impossible as dividing by zero" where i explained how wrong were 2 bankers of ECB on their article-memo "A viable bitcoin is as impossible as dividing by zero" demonstrating their antipathy towards Bitcoin as a per-to-peer monetary unit. Yet, after 2 years of consultations and salaries paid from the Eurozone working people and taxpayers, they ended to the conclusion that a Digital Euro is indeed viable under the authority of the European Central Bank !!!
As Varoufakis noted, if you want to create a digital currency, you need to follow Satoshi Nakamoto's vision of a REAL Peer-to-Peer electronic cash system, not an electronic cash system controlled by a Middleman in the case of a Digital Euro, controlled by the European Central Bank and the global banking and financial establishment which as I have mentioned above, is trying to adopt itself to the Blockchain Revolution. Above everything, Euro is a FIAT currency of non-finite (unlimited) quantity printed from the European Central Bank. How can you create a finite (limited) quantity of Digital Euro as Bitcoin is?
About Varoufakis connection to Bitcoin, I have commented in the past on my article "Few Thoughts about Satoshi Nakamoto Part B" that he could easily be Satoshi Nakamoto as they both share relevant political and financial ideas. Yet, as Varoufakis explained in one interview back to 2017, "Bitcoin is the perfect bubble, but blockchain is a remarkable solution"
and personally without being an economist or a financial advisor I would agree that if you try to valuate and trade Bitcoin in a FIAT currency (i.e Dollars) and not try to think outside the box of the current financial system of the establishment, indeed Bitcoin is a bubble.
***Disclaimer: All information found on this article is for informational purposes only. I do not provide any personal investment advice so please make your own research before proceeding to any investment/trading action.***
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