Bitcoin price WARNING: CEO says cryptocurrency has 'NOTHING to do with the real economy'

Bitcoin price suffered a massive plunge as the cryptocurrency reached the value of $9,114.56, according to Coindesk at 10:37 pm on February 1.

As the crypto-craze started to die down, Euronext CEO Stéphane Boujnah claims bitcoin cannot even be classified as a cryptocurrency.

Speaking on Bloomberg, Mr Boujnah said Euronext will never open a bitcoin market.

He said: “We will not create a bitcoin market because the mandate of Euronext is to power Pan-European capital markets to finance the real economy and bitcoin has nothing to do with the real economy. 

“Bitcoin has a lot to do with bitcoin. And we believe bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin is at best a crypto asset. All currencies are assets but not all assets are currencies.

“Clearly, bitcoin today is just like a piece of art, or just like a diamond, just like a Pokemon card.

“It can be anything to capture value but today people buy it because it goes up and because it’s not as serious and transparent as a lot of assets. 

“So great, good luck. Like any emerging assets, it’s very fancy, which is great, but this is not our mandate.

“Our mandate is to be the place regulated, transparent, open, reliable. It’s not our mandate to be part of this new game in town.”

Despite the rollercoaster few months suffered by the crypto mania, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ripple and ethereum still benefit from a “growing” appreciation among institutional investors, according to Dr Garrick Hileman, from the Cambridge University Centre for Alternative Finance.

In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Dr Hileman said: “Any breakthrough technology, and bitcoin and blockchain, are certainly breakthrough technologies, hype often outpaces the reality.

“In terms of both of how mature the technology is, the rates of adoption.

“We’ve seen this before with bitcoin and we’ve seen the price shoot up first in late 2013 when it first entered the mainstream public consciousness.

“The price subsequently crashed 85 percent as security at a major exchange broke down and bitcoin’s were stolen.

 “So we’ve seen this kind of story repeat where bitcoin rises, gets hyped and then there’s a crash.”