Bitcoin should not be banned, but regulation is important: Sheila Bair

Bitcoin’s price has slowly crept back to nearly $11,000 after it fell from almost $20,000 to below $10,000, but the cryptocurrency’s volatility has added to concerns from investors and governments around the globe. South Korea has threatened a ban of bitcoin, while countries such as India have started to regulate it.

“I’ve argued we should not ban it, I mean, we don’t have a tradition of banning the assets or investment choices by the market. But I do think some regulation is important.  We’re seeing the CFTC the SEC, the Treasury Department move in that direction,” Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair told FOX Business’ Connell McShane on “Mornings with Maria.”

Bair predicted blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, could actually one day become a useful tool for regulators.

“I personally believe that blockchain technology is going to have important regulatory benefits in terms of being more secure, more reliable and less expensive for both consumers and businesses in terms of recording transactions, but we’re still a long way off in actually making that happen.”

Bair then warned investors about getting into cryptocurrency or blockchain in the near term.

“I do think this is a scenario where investors need to be extremely careful, you’ve got a lot of companies out there just attaching crypto and blockchain terminology to their name and trying to their value when there’s really no substance behind that.”