Last weekend Barclays worked the press circuit on Bitcoin and blockchain. The Sunday Times broke the story first, then the Daily Mail, Arstechnica and outlets across the web picked it up. Through mult
Last weekend Barclays worked the press circuit on Bitcoin and blockchain. The Sunday Times broke the story first, then the Daily Mail, Arstechnica and outlets across the web picked it up. Through multiple rewrites, one claim dominated coverage: Barclays would accept bitcoin on behalf of charities. Then CryptoCoinsNews published a correction saying the original story was false—Barclays wouldn't touch bitcoin.
The mess deepened. After CCN's piece, the Wall Street Journal ran something that seemed to validate the Sunday Times account, which the paper never retracted. We reached out to Barclays multiple times and to the Sunday Times reporter, and can now clarify what happened.
CCN got part of it right. Barclays is not accepting bitcoin, as the Daily Mail and Arstechnica claimed. CCN nailed that part. Where CCN went wrong: insisting the Sunday Times article was false. A Barclays representative told us they had no problem with the Sunday Times piece, only that it was vague in ways that caused misreadings elsewhere. The Sunday Times never said Barclays would accept bitcoin—only that they plan to "[allow] people to make donations to charities in bitcoin." We asked Barclays to confirm or deny that quote. They wouldn't deny it. The representative said they "had no issue with" the Sunday Times article and only with how other outlets twisted it.
Barclays plans to help charities use bitcoin. They won't transfer or hold any themselves.
"We will be advising charities on how to use bitcoin, to make it work for them, to use it for fundraising and other activities, but none of that is going through any Barclays system, we don't hold or accept bitcoin," the representative said. "[We are] advising a charity on how to accept or use and make sense of the technology."
How do they help charities? The Wall Street Journal had some answers. It identified Safello as the unnamed exchange in the Sunday Times story and said Safello would partner with Barclays. Our Barclays source pushed back on "partnership," describing it as mentorship. Safello is part of their accelerator program with other fintech companies. The two experimental labs mentioned in many reports function in an advisory capacity, which may explain where some confusion took root.
Barclays has shown consistent interest in digital currencies and blockchain. This announcement joins recent reports tying the bank to Ethereum. The representative emphasized Barclays' positive view of blockchain. Like other large financial firms, Barclays focuses more on what blockchain can create than on the bitcoin cryptocurrency.
"We are interested in the technology. It is the underlying blockchain technology that interests us more than the cryptocurrency," the representative said. "We are quite excited about the potential and that is why we have these labs that are sort of working with other companies."
Barclays won't "accept" bitcoin, but they mentor at least one exchange and teach charities how to accept it. They may direct charities toward Safello and other firms in their mentorship program. Barclays cites UK regulation as the barrier to accepting or storing bitcoin, but the bank is bullish on the tech underneath bitcoin.
It took nearly a week to get the story straight. Barclays won't accept bitcoin because their regulator won't allow it. But they test it. They work with companies in the space. They educate charities about bitcoin, including how those charities can accept it. This is good news that falls short of the claims in the early reports.
