11 Other institutions include legal tender status (meaning that you cannot be sued for non-payment of debts if you offer sterling to meet them) and the insurance of deposits of up to £ at banks and building societies backed by the Government. 12 This will feature JMW Turner. For further information see https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer-20-pound-note 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  -  The Monetary Policy Committee which conducts monetary policy independently to achieve price stability defined by the 2% inflation target;  -  The Prudential Regulation Committee which is charged with ensuring the safety and soundness of the banks and building societies that hold your money;  -  The Financial Policy Committee with its wide powers to maintain the resilience of the financial system as a whole; and  -  The Bank’s powers and facilities that provide a wide range of liquidity to banks and other financial institutions in order to promote the continuous functioning of the financial system during shocks. The Bank has been given clear remits by Parliament for these responsibilities and has operational independence to use its powers to achieve them. We are accountable to Parliament and the people for our performance. The combination of this robust institutional framework and the fact that only sterling is legal tender in the UK sets a very high bar for competing forms of money to dislodge sterling. But at present, more than a thousand virtual or “crypto” currencies are trying to do just that.
The Advent of Cryptocurrencies In the depths of the global financial crisis, the coincidence of technological developments and collapsing confidence in some banking systems sparked the cryptocurrency revolution. Its advocates claim that a decentralised cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, is more trustworthy than centralised fiat money because:  -  Its supply is fixed and therefore immune from the age-old temptations of debasement;  -  Its use is free from risky private banks; and  -  Those who hold it can remain anonymous and therefore free from the ravenous eyes of tax authorities or worse still law enforcement. Some also argue that cryptocurrencies could be more efficient than centralised fiat money because the underlying distributed ledger technology cuts out intermediaries like central banks and financial institutions and allows payments to be made directly between payer and payee. 14,15  13  The Bank operates the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service and infrastructure that holds accounts for banks, building societies and other institutions. The balances in these accounts can be used to move money in real time between these account holders. This delivers final and risk-free settlement. 14 Whereas banks hold records of most fiat money and are entrusted to ensure its validity, with digital currencies, the ledger containing all transactions by all users is publicly available.