The United State Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen will on Thursday deliver her first speech on cryptocurrencies and what she thinks about digital assets.
During a Thursday speech at American University in Washington, Yellen will discuss how the Treasury Department regards cryptocurrency as an emerging element of the economy. The address, scheduled for 10:30 a.m., is likely to reaffirm some of the sentiments expressed in President Joe Biden’s executive order, which called for further monitoring of the industry.
“Secretary Yellen will make the case for a consistent and comprehensive policy framework that promotes responsible innovation of digital assets and appropriately assesses and mitigates the risks they may pose,” according to a Tuesday statement from the Treasury.
Since last year, the Treasury, White House, and federal regulatory agencies have been paying more attention to crypto, particularly stablecoins. Last year’s report from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which marked the US government’s first volley on defining rules for dollar-backed stablecoins, was drafted in part by Yellen’s Treasury.
Regulators in the United States have been pleading with Congress to pass new rules for stablecoin issuers in the same manner that the government regulates banks. If lawmakers fail to deliver results, agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve plan to utilize another avenue — the Financial Stability Monitoring Council, an umbrella group of senior regulators – to push for more oversight, despite the council’s limited powers.
During her time as Fed chair, Yellen was an early crypto critic, but she has subsequently adopted a more cautious tone, acknowledging the industry’s financial innovations and the fact that digital tokens and decentralized finance are becoming increasingly relevant in Americans’ interests.
