The Republic of Uzbekistan will never prefer cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) equally a payment method, according to a central bank official.

Behzod Khamraev, deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU), predicted that local authorities will never allow residents to utilise Bitcoin as payment, alleging that BTC is backed past nothing.

In an interview with local business publication Spot.uz, Khamraev argued that Bitcoin is widely considered "speculative" and will never get equal to fiat currencies similar the United States dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen or the Russian ruble.

The official pointed out that in that location are virtually 28 trillion Uzbekistani soms in apportionment, and all of those are backed by the fundamental banking company's avails.

"One can even see an inscription near the regulator's obligations on the banknotes, while cryptocurrency is not backed by anything," Khamraev added. The official's comments came before long later on Republic of el salvador became the offset country in the earth to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar on Sept. 7.

Uzbekistan officially banned its residents from making payments in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in late 2022 as role of an order of the manager of the National Agency for Projection Management (NAPM) under the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan. "Crypto assets cannot be used as a method of sending or receiving payments on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan," the lodge said.

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In Apr 2022, the NAPM proposed to legalize cryptocurrency trading in Uzbekistan to allow residents to exchange crypto assets confronting national and foreign currencies. The say-so previously banned its citizens from purchasing cryptocurrencies in tardily 2022.

The CBU and the NAPM did not immediately answer to Cointelegraph's request for comment.