Norman Chan: Crypto-assets and money Keynote speech by Mr Norman T L Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Treasury Markets Summit 2018 "Crypto-assets and Money", Hong Kong, 21 September 2018. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, 1. In the past few years, different forms of “crypto-currencies”, notably Bitcoin, have emerged and become a catchword. Bitcoin is the number 2 trending searches of global news according to Google Trends. These crypto-assets normally deploy the Distributed Ledger Technology, or DLT, and have a limited amount of issuance based on “mining” by participants. These crypto-currencies can be transferred between participants through the internet without a central clearing agent. There are many trading platforms that allow these crypto-currencies to be traded. It has been argued by some people that crypto-currencies would disrupt or at least seriously challenge the traditional fiat money, especially when some central banks have been issuing enormous amount of fiat money through quantitative easing. What I’ll do today is to discuss this important question: will crypto-currencies become an alternative form of money in the future? 2. To answer this question, it is necessary to start with the basic issue: what is money? I think there is little disagreement amongst us that money should have three key attributes or functions: (a) Medium of exchange: Money must be generally accepted as a means or instrument of payment to facilitate the sale and purchase of goods and services. Store of value: Money must hold its value over time.

Do the utmost to increase the lobbying authority and capacity with the Albanian executive, parliament and judiciary. Intensify your contacts with business associations and analyse every claim or request, case by case, even if it comes from a single business. Take a public stance in any case so that speculations and abuse are reduced to maximum. Engage all your financial, human and media arsenal for a more solid anchoring of your expectations with the public. Turn the public into your most powerful anchor. Third, I would like to call for the Albanian executive to increase the confidence in and support to the banking system, especially as regards finalising legal amendments on collateral execution. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Cooperation between public institutions and the banking system may be fruitful also in terms of introducing specific development programmes and providing financial and concession support to sectors, branches, important operators, including foreign investors. Fourth, I would consider as vital a broad-based consensus of the entire political spectrum for supporting the Bank of Albania’s efforts and moves to maintain the country’s macro-financial stability. We remain open to explain continuously, transparently and responsibly our past, present and future decision-making. We remain firm in our position that a central bank is successful and enjoys the trust of the public when it makes independent, far-sighted and fully transparent decisions. In these moments, the unquestionable guarantee that the Bank of Albania gives to the public for the country’s macro-financial stability is paramount.