The Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Thursday said that the recent splurge in bitcoin price is abnormal, Xinhuanet reported.

Bitcoin price has skyrocketed to fresh new highs in the past couple of weeks, nearing $20,000 (on Bitstamp). However, the price is showing a dip in the past few days and BTC/USD is currently trading at 14288 levels at the time of writing.

"It's not my place to say, but if you look at the charts, it's clear that the jump (in prices) is abnormal," Kuroda reportedly said at a press conference following the BoJ's two-day policy meeting.

Kuroda went on to say that bitcoin is now an instrument of speculative investment, adding that the digital currency does not function as a method of payment.

The fund settlement law, effective April 1, 2017, legalized bitcoin as payment method in Japan and requires registration of cryptocurrency exchanges. Only those exchanges that are registered with the Financial Services Agency (FSA) are permitted to conduct virtual currency exchange in Japan. The FSA has approved a number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including Zaif Exchange, QUOINE, bitFlyer, Tokyo Bitcoin Exchange Co. Ltd, Bit Arg Exchange Tokyo Co. Ltd, FTT Corporation, Xtheta Corporation, and others.

More recently, the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said that the recent surge in bitcoin price did not present a threat to global financial stability, Reuters reported.

“At present, we don’t view it as a financial stability issue,” Carney said, adding that the combined value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was around half the market capitalisation of Apple Inc. “So it’s significant ... but it’s more like an equity-type risk that’s spread fairly widely around the world.”