Leading financial organisation the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have argued that global action must be taken to regulate cryptocurrencies, in the wake of the excessive rise in cryptocurrency prices.

Gerry Rice, a spokesperson for the IMF, told reporters last week that greater discussion and cooperation needed to be prioritised by governments around the world.

Rice argued that risks can quickly arise when the market values of assets sharply rise, especially when they are being invested in using borrowed money. Rice said that people had to be educated on the various risks involved with investing in cryptocurrency, and advised them to invest carefully in their own risk-management procedures.

Rice was also vocal about the other threats that bitcoin posed, highlighting that cryptocurrency could potentially help to foster tax evasion, funding of terror, laundering of money and fraud.

The newly-reported stance from the IMF follows the latest announcement from the US government that a new group working on developing cryptocurrency regulations has now been formed, entitled the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Discussing the aims of the group, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the group had been set up to help ensure that \"bad people\" did not use crypto in order to do \"bad things\".