the crisis, still ongoing, since 9 august 2007 led to us taking even more impressive decisions almost immediately, for example the decision to provide the financial system with a 24 - hour loan of eur 95 billion in the summer of 2007. this decision appears to have strongly increased the ecb ’ s global and european visibility. we were the first central bank to react immediately when the international financial turbulence first appeared. today, the eurosystem provides considerable support to the european financial system, since we refinance, with full allotment and at fixed rates, the euro area ’ s commercial banks in a week, a month, three months and six months. this was something that was unthinkable before the financial turbulence intensified. i would also like to underline the speed with which the public authorities as a whole, including governments and parliaments, reacted. together, they showed that europe was able to take decisions, even in the most difficult circumstances. le figaro magazine : the financial times named you “ personality of the year ” in 2007. do you see this as a way of getting back at those who criticised the ecb ’ s “ psychorigidity ” in the past? jean - claude trichet : these criticisms turned out to have no basis, as we saw, and have, it seems to me, largely disappeared. those who systematically sung the praises of the most accommodative monetary policies have come to realise, over the last 18 months, that this was too simplistic a view. the ecb ’ s governing council does what the treaty on european union asks it to do, on behalf of 329 million european citizens in the euro area. while i was governor of the banque de france, there was also a public debate on the decisions of the monetary policy council, which some 70 % of french citizens approved, across all public sensibilities. i have noticed that public support for the ecb's policy of price stability is also very strong and is an element of trust which is important for the economy as a whole. le figaro magazine : was the euro not responsible, in part, for inflation? jean - claude trichet : on the contrary. over the last ten years, we have managed to maintain a stable rise in prices of 2. 2 % per annum on average in the euro area. this is a good result given the spectacular rise in the prices of raw materials and energy which has been recorded over this period. nevertheless,

. why cigarettes, not milk or fruits? the answer is, it is hard to hold so many fruits in your pocket. also, fruits and milk are not standardized. what happened was that cigarettes emerged as the currency of choice in the camps. but then, many problems came out later. a smoker knows a bad cigarette from a good one. so, he will keep the good cigarettes and trade the bad ones. 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches so, we expect that all these problems will happen as well to virtual currency. there are many competing ones, and even the ones that survive will have problems because of all these issues. the limits of decentralization : when should regulation step in? if the goal is to use them as stablecoins, clearly, that is banking. because then, you are taking money - taking deposits and guaranteeing deposits to support the currency. therefore, you should be treated like a bank and regulated like one. if you are issuing a stablecoin, maybe the requirement should be at least 50 percent of the assets that back it up should be very liquid assets. maybe you should have a reserve requirement. maybe you should have a liquidity coverage ratio, and so on and so forth. therefore, this avoids the very purpose of why these currencies were created to begin with. for them to be useful and safe, they have to be regulated. i think that this is the story of ftx [ failed cryptocurrency exchange ]. encouraging responsible and cautious innovation nonetheless, we should be open to new developments, especially [ in ] a country [ like ours ] that is dependent on remittances. therefore, we have to have an open mind. at the same time, as [ mbm ] eli [ remolona ] said, regulation should be a cautious one. we do not want to regulate without asking what the private players think and the role that they envision for virtual currencies. are they for remittances? are they for speculation? we are clearly, more likely to give [ virtual asset service provider ( vasp ) ] licenses to banks that already exist if, at all, there will be trading ; if they will be allowed to trade in these virtual currencies. by the way, if virtual currencies were to replace gold - if you believe google - the overall supply of gold is us $ 7. 5 trillion globally. if this can displace just