Bitcoin faces up to a ‘range of issues’

Virtual currencies such as bitcoin present a wide range of issues for financial authorities in areas such as taxation, consumer protection, and money laundering, a leading Central Bank official has said.

Gareth Murphy, director of markets supervision at the Central Bank, said developments in mobile and information technology are likely to change the landscape of financial services in the coming years.

He told the BitFin 2014 conference in Dublin there were seven main areas of concern to financial authorities. These include the impact of virtual currencies on data gathering for the economic statistics used in the stewardship of economies.