respect to consumer education and protecting investors ’ rights. ) to be clear, we do not endorse privately - issued cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange. moreover, given their highly speculative and volatile nature, we do not endorse them as investment vehicles either. rather, our objective as a central bank is to address any risks that they may pose to the public even as they exist as a fact of life. this is consistent with our goal of increasing consumer protection. it is also in keeping with our advocacy against money laundering, terrorist financing and other crimes ( as you know, given cryptocurrency ’ s reliance on the full anonymity of those who transact in them, there is a propensity for this mode of payment to be used for illegal purposes ). in keeping with our mandate to promote financial stability, we also aim to address any risks posed by cryptocurrency to the financial system. these risks are not imagined. they arise as cryptocurrency necessarily interplays with the non - digital world – the regular economy – when they are exchanged into pesos or other traditional currency. it is important to note that privately - issued cryptocurrency is not legal tender. unlike fiat money, 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches such cryptocurrencies are not backed or guaranteed by any central monetary authority. only the bsp has the sole power and authority to issue currency within the philippines. under the law, no other person or entity, public or private, may put into circulation, notes, coins or any other object or document which might circulate as currency. our notes and coins are fully guaranteed by the government and are legal tender in the philippines for all public and private debts. while privately - issued cryptocurrencies do not enjoy legal tender status, they are, however, as a matter of practice, used as a medium of exchange and a store of value. but aren ’ t so many other things? the red paperclip story this brings to mind a story about a red paperclip that went viral. some of you may be familiar with it. in 2005, a canadian blogger – kyle macdonald began a series of transactions which he posted on - line. he began with a red paperclip as a medium of exchange. he exchanged this for an interesting looking fish - shaped pen, which he traded for an odd - looking doorknob … then a camp stove …

a virtual meeting of the iif, i would be remiss if i did not highlight that if these projections for u. s. economic activity are realized, rising u. s. imports will serve as an important source of external demand to the rest of the world this year and beyond. as with overall economic activity, conditions in the labor market have recently improved. employment rose by 379, 000 in february, as the leisure and hospitality sector recouped about two - thirds of the jobs that were lost in december and january. nonetheless, employment is still 9. 5 million below its pre - pandemic level for the economy as a whole. the unemployment rate remains elevated at 6. 2 percent in february, and once one factors in the decline in the labor force since the onset of the pandemic and the misclassification of some workers on temporary layoff as employed, the true unemployment rate is closer to 10 percent. it is worth highlighting that in the baseline projections of the fomc presented in the latest sep released last week, my colleagues and i substantially revised up our outlook for the economy, projecting a relatively rapid return to levels of employment and inflation consistent with the federal reserve ’ s statutory mandate as compared with the recovery from the global financial crisis. in particular, the median fomc participant now projects the unemployment rate to reach 4. 5 percent at the end of this year and 3. 5 percent by the end of 2023. with regards to inflation, the median inflation projection of fomc participants is 2. 4 percent this year and declines to 2 percent next year before moving back up to 2. 1 percent in 2023. over the next few months, 12 - month measures of inflation are expected to move temporarily above our 2 percent longer - run goal, owing to a run of - 3year - over - year comparisons with depressed service - sector prices recorded in the spring of 2020 and supply bottlenecks limiting how quickly production can respond in the near term. however, i expect most of this increase to be transitory and for inflation to return to — or perhaps run somewhat above — our 2 percent longer - run goal in 2022 and 2023. this outcome would be entirely consistent with the new framework we adopted in august 2020 and began to implement at our september 2020 fomc meeting. 3 in our new framework, we aim for inflation outcomes that keep inflation expectations well anchored at 2 percent. this means that following periods when inflation has been running