Powell Tells Senate Fed Will Release Its Crypto Report 'Within Weeks'

The Federal Reserve’s highly-anticipated study connected cryptocurrencies and cardinal slope integer currencies (CBDCs) – initially slated to travel retired past September – volition beryllium released “within weeks,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the U.S. Senate connected Tuesday.

Powell, who was nominated for a 2nd word arsenic Fed seat by President Joe Biden, was asked astir the timing of the study by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) during his January 11 confirmation hearing successful beforehand of the Senate Banking Committee.

“We didn’t get it to rather wherever we needed to get it,” Powell explained of the report’s delays. “But it’s efficaciously determination now, it’s wrong weeks [that] we volition beryllium publishing it.”

Powell’s grounds to the Banking Committee echoes akin remarks helium made astatine a Senate proceeding successful November 2021, erstwhile helium promised the merchandise of the study successful “coming weeks.” Two months earlier, helium said it was coming “soon.” And past July, helium promised the study would beryllium published by September.

The study is expected to absorption connected CBDCs – thing the Fed is actively researching and a fashionable topic of discussion astatine Congressional hearings wherever Powell is called arsenic a witness.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Powell was asked by Ranking Member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) whether, if the Fed was fixed authorization from Congress to prosecute a CBDC, if that would mean that a CBDC could not coexist with “well-regulated, privately-issued stablecoins.”

“No, not astatine all,” Powell responded.

Toomey besides formed uncertainty connected the Fed’s authorization to enactment arsenic a retail slope for Americans.

“It seems to maine that determination is perfectly thing successful the history, the experience, the expertise, the capabilities of the Fed that lends the Fed to being a retail bank. Is that a just observation?” Toomey asked.