Trump appoints crypto-friendly Kevin Warsh as Fed chair

Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh has been nominated by US President Donald Trump to succeed Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve, setting up a Senate confirmation fight.

In a high-stakes Senate confirmation battle, US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will nominate former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the US central bank.

The decision, revealed by Trump on his social media platform Truth Social, verified Thursday reports that Trump would press ahead with the 55‑year‑old ex–Fed official and Morgan Stanley banker as his favored candidate.

The president said that he had known Warsh for a long time and had “no doubt” that he would go down as “one of the “GREAT Fed chairmen, maybe the best.”

Trump appoints crypto-friendly Kevin Warsh

Prediction markets and Wall Street analysts have progressively identified Warsh as Trump's likely nominee, with odds climbing dramatically ahead of Friday's decision.

From 2006 to 2011, Warsh was a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Since then, he has frequently criticized ultra-loose monetary policy, challenging the Fed's post-crisis balance sheet expansion and advocating for a “regime change.”

Warsh has been noticeably more upbeat on Bitcoin
than Powell, who repeatedly played down the cryptocurrency’s importance for the United States economy.

Warsh refuted the idea that Bitcoin would make it harder for the Fed to control the economy in a July Hoover Institution talk, contending that it might serve as a kind of market discipline.

Warsh's choice coincides with traders repricing riskier assets, such as Bitcoin, due to the possibility of a more hawkish Fed chair and the possibility of a partial closure of the US government.

Gold advocate and analyst Peter Schiff argued that the “crash” in gold and silver today had “nothing to do with Trump nominating Kevin Warsh to be Fed chair.”

He stated that Trump would not have nominated him if he believed he would be a hawk, and that “even the most hawkish FOMC members are still doves.”

The nomination will require confirmation by the US Senate, where lawmakers are expected to scrutinize Warsh’s past calls for tighter policy and his criticism of the Powell Fed’s approach to regulation and crisis interventions.