Janet Yellen: US Treasury Secretary again with a crypto-critical statement
The new US Treasury Secretary Yellen has not exactly earned a reputation as a crypto enthusiast in her previous position as Fed President. Now she points out grievances again at a New York Times event, but also makes some contradicting statements.
Janet Yellen is the first woman to head the US Treasury. Since the lack of regulation of the crypto market in the USA is denounced by many, their attitude to this topic has of course come into focus. Her statements from the past indicated that she was rather skeptical about the successes of Bitcoin & Co.
Janet Yellen recently reiterated this rather critical point of view at a New York Times event. They cannot imagine that Bitcoin will manage to become a "widespread transaction mechanism". The New York Times has now published the interview on the occasion of the DealBook / DC Policy Project.
“I don’t think that Bitcoin is widely used as a transaction mechanism, It’s an extremely inefficient way of conduction transactions and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering.”
That’s their wording. However, Yellen did not specify exactly where she sees the “inefficiency”. This statement is all the more surprising given that when she was sworn in as minister, Yellen stated that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer “potential advantages for the US and its allies” and “improve the efficiency of the financial system” (see p. 96 on the linked) Source).
Yellen hints at CBDC considerations
As emphasized several times before, the US Treasury Secretary does not reject digital currencies in principle. Central bank digital money (CBDC) continues to be an issue for the US Federal Reserve. In this area, however, there are “still many open questions”. These included, for example, the effects on monetary policy and the interaction of the Federal Reserve with private investors.
Janet Yellen is moving in a similar way to the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine Lagarde. She also took note of the very strong increase in private investors' interest in crypto values. What conclusions the ECB intends to draw from this remained open at first. In any case, the purchase of Bitcoin reserves is not an option for the ECB.