Fed Chair Powell addresses concerns over permissionless distributed ledgers in Senate hearing
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell spoke on March 7 in entrance of a Senate Banking, Housing and City Affairs Committee.
In the course of the listening to, he was questioned by Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) about permissionless distributed ledgers and whether or not they had anyplace throughout the monetary system.
Powell mentioned:
“There are actual issues about permissionless public blockchains, and the reason being that they’ve been so inclined to fraud, to cash laundering and all of these issues. I feel what you heard from the federal banking businesses in one among their stories was that they’d have a tendency to take a look at these as inconsistent with security and soundness.”
On stablecoins, Powell mentioned that with “acceptable regulation,” they may merge with conventional banks.
“The place stablecoin exercise will get the identical regulation as comparable merchandise in other places, then there definitely might be a spot for stablecoins in our monetary providers sector,” the Fed chair mentioned.
Lummis additionally pressed Powell on the necessity for digital asset regulation. She in contrast the US to different jurisdictions just like the UK, the EU, Switzerland and Singapore, all of which have moved within the final a number of years to create legislative frameworks for digital property, whereas the US has lagged.
“I do suppose it could be necessary for us to have a workable authorized framework round digital actions,” Powell added. “I feel that’s necessary and one thing Congress in precept, must do, as a result of we will’t actually try this.”
