In January, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde stated, “Bitcoins won’t enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the [ECB] General Council.â€

However, less than a year later, the Czech National Bank (CNB) announced the purchase of $1 million worth of bitcoin and other digital assets as part of a pilot program.

Christine Lagarde insisted no European central bank would ever hold #Bitcoin.

The Czech National Bank just bought $1 million worth for its reserves. pic.twitter.com/cUWSot5XPB

— TFTC (@TFTC21) November 13, 2025

While this bitcoin is not held in the CNB’s official international reserves, it is now one step closer to making that a reality. CNB Governor Aleš Michl previously told the Financial Times about his desire to put as much as 5% of the central bank’s reserves into bitcoin.

For now, the CNB has created a “test portfolio†of digital assets that includes both bitcoin and a variety of U.S. dollar-derived tokens. The bank will report on its experiences with these digital assets over the next few years. According to Michl, evaluating Bitcoin’s potential use within the central bank’s reserves is indeed one of the aims of this new project.

This latest move from the CNB is not the first time bitcoin has been a source of embarrassment for Lagarde this year, as just last month, the ECB president was also confronted about past statements regarding the cryptocurrency lacking any sort of intrinsic value. Bitcoin eventually went on a run from roughly $35,000 to $125,000 since those comments were made, and the crypto asset now sits around the $100,000 mark.

Jordy asking Lagarde about her opinion on Bitcoin this week. Legendary!

The longer this goes on and the longer Bitcoiners confront central bankers, the more people will wake up. pic.twitter.com/9oTWQHKHk0

— Dr. Jan Wüstenfeld (@JanWues) October 6, 2025

“There is no underlying value to it,†Lagarde doubled down during the recent interview. “It may well be that it prospers. It may well be that it lasts forever. But it may well be that it collapses as well.â€

Lagarde also said bitcoin could not operate as some sort of “digital gold,†but she does see promise in stablecoins or central bank-issued digital currencies. Notably, an ECB blog post also predicted the death of Bitcoin in 2022 in the aftermath of the FTX disaster.

“More likely, however, [the recent stabilization around $20,000] is an artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance – and this was already foreseeable before FTX went bust and sent the bitcoin price to well below USD16,000,†the blog post erroneously predicted.

Bitcoin as the Base of a New Monetary Standard

While much of Bitcoin’s early history was focused on censorship-resistant payments, the development trajectory it has taken thus far has clearly been more focused on the digital gold use case. And indeed, stablecoins seem to have more promise for payments over the short term, as indicated by Cash App’s recent integration with the dollar-backed tokens, despite Blocks CEO Jack Dorsey being a notorious bitcoin maximalist. That said, Block also sees stablecoins as more similar to traditional fintech than Bitcoin, so they are not necessarily related in any way.

Of course, when you consider assets such as Strategy’s STRC and Tether’s USDT, it’s clear that new digital currencies or other types of stable assets that are at least partially backed by bitcoin could be the next path forward for bringing the benefits of this technology to more users without even knowing that bitcoin is involved behind the scenes.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that expecting people to adopt Bitcoin directly is similar to expecting people to run their own email server instead of using Gmail.

Bitcoin service providers are the way forward, at least for the foreseeable future. It’s not the end of…

— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) October 11, 2025

While some countries have dabbled with bitcoin as an alternative to the fiat currency-dominated global financial system, the fact of the matter is that the issuers of currencies such as the dollar and the euro still hold tremendous sway over the monetary activities of smaller nations. For example, El Salvador was persuaded to weaken its pro-bitcoin stance in exchange for a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Opinions vary in terms of how the United States should deal with the emergence of bitcoin as a digital reserve asset that could potentially compete with the U.S. dollar in that regard. Back in 2021, former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shared her view that bitcoin could be an emerging threat to U.S. dollar dominance. U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman has shared a similar sentiment when railing against bitcoin on the House floor.

the video of @BradSherman‘s call to ban bitcoin is the best advertisement for the digital asset i’ve seen in quite some time (HT Oskar_Koch on Reddit) https://t.co/KeGCO0uXSh pic.twitter.com/VDF6XxBFre

— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) May 9, 2019

On the other hand, U.S. President Donald Trump and others have indicated that the combination of bitcoin with stablecoins could help strengthen the U.S. dollar in the information age. Although Trump currently appears preoccupied with profiting from shitcoin sidequests.