Fed Chair Jerome Powell Updates Work on Digital Dollar — Says US Central Bank Digital Currency Will Take ‘at Least a Couple of Years’ – Regulation Bitcoin News

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the U.S. central bank is looking at whether to issue a digital dollar with a “very broad scope.” He noted that the Fed is collaborating with Congress and the executive branch on whether to issue a central bank digital currency.

Powell is Fed Chair and discusses Digital Dollar Progress

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell provided an update of the central bank’s digital dollar work Tuesday during a panel discussion on digital finance hosted by Banque of France.

“Cash is not disappearing here in the United States. We still use cash quite a lot,” he began. However, the central banker noted: “It is declining, not in absolute terms but compared to non-cash payments, it’s declining.”

Powell explained that the Federal Reserve is looking very closely at “the potential costs and benefits” of issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the U.S. He detailed:

This is something we are examining very closely. Both the policy and technology aspects are being evaluated, but we have a broad view.

However, Powell clarified: “We have not decided to proceed and we don’t see ourselves making that decision for some time.”

The Fed chairman explained: “We see ourselves as working in collaboration with Congress … but also with the executive branch which brings expertise to many of the issues that we have to deal with here.”

He added, “At the end of the day, we will need approval from both the executive branch and Congress to move ahead with a central bank digital currency,” elaborating:

It is an ongoing process over at least two or three years in which we do work, build public trust in our analyses and reach our final conclusions.

Noting that the Fed has not reached a decision on whether to issue a digital dollar, Powell concluded: “That’s where we are, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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Kevin Helms

Kevin, a student of Austrian Economics and evangelist since 2011, discovered Bitcoin. He is interested in Bitcoin security and open-source software, network effects, and the intersection of cryptography and economics.