A former chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has said that there is no legal precedent from which to launch a ban on bitcoin being used as an asset. Sheila Bair was speaking with CNBC's "Fast Money" on 19th January as she followed up on the themes of an op-ed which was published by Yahoo in December, by calling for additional regulation of cryptocurrencies.

During the interview on Friday, Bair reiterated her point that she didn't want to "ban assets," but that regulation of coin exchanges and the wider crypto markets was necessary to prevent market manipulation and money laundering.

Bair went on to say that she believed that the launch of bitcoin futures contracts on the CME and Cboe markets was positive because it would provide a window of opportunity for governmental and regulatory bodies to get reports from the exchanges that feed prices into futures products.

Bair's main concern was that stories of Bitcoin millionaires would encourage the public to invest in bitcoin in the hope of high returns, without fully understanding what the products they are buying, as there seems to be confusion between Blockchain and Bitcoin technology.

Sheila Bair is currently serving on the board of Paxos, a company which develops Blockchain technology.