Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee, and while reports of his remarks on cryptocurrency have focused on his narrow and negative views of the technology, we think the real news is that he stated that the Fed doesn’t have jurisdiction over cryptocurrencies and isn’t seeking to provide oversight.
An exchange between Powell and Rep. Patrick McHenry, who understands cryptocurrency, basically restates Coin Center’s recent explainer on crypto and monetary policy: “Cryptocurrencies hold much promise to expand the range of monetary options available to all classes of people and secure a degree of security and liberty not offered by some of the world’s government-backed currencies. They currently exist in a small and experimental corner of the world’s financial markets, and are therefore unable to restrain central bank’s monetary policy levers.”