Showing posts with label federal reserve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label federal reserve. Show all posts

An Official US National Cryptocurrency? Federal Reserve President Says - It's Coming...

Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, believes that sooner or later the US will develop its own national cryptocurrency. The representative considers it "inevitable" in the future, saying central banks around the world will eventually begin to issue digital currencies.

Speaking this week at the Community Banking Conference in St. Louis, Harker pointed out that the United States shouldn't rush to issue a national cryptocurrency, but stressed that it's time to begin learning how it works, saying "It is inevitable ... I think it is better for us to start getting our hands around it."

Quite a leap from less than a year ago, where researchers at the Fed quickly brushed off the entire concept, at the time saying “Cryptocurrency is still a very young technology and there are large operational risks. Overall, we believe that the call for a ‘Fedcoin’ or any other central bank cryptocurrency is somewhat naive.”

But don't expect breaking news on this front soon, Harker believes a national cryptocurrency is still at least 5 years away.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk

In a huge surprise move, the US Federal Reserve is now officially tracking & indexing cryptocurrencies!

The St.Louis branch of the Federal Reserve announced they are officially indexing cryptocurrencies - using the publicly available charting data provided by Coinbase.   Their index will include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin.

There is some history showing various people from the Federal Reserve were keeping a close eye on the cryptocurrency world for some time - however the move today says they see it as an economic factor worth more than just casually monitoring - they're now keeping records on cryptocurrency value data like they do currencies of foreign nations and commodities. 

Lael Brainard from the U.S. Federal Reserve's Board of Governors spoke on the topic of cryptocurrency just a couple months ago here in San Francisco, saying:

"Because of the transformative potential of digital currency and distributed ledger technologies, the Federal Reserve is actively monitoring digital innovations in the financial system. We have been keenly evaluating developments in fintech and digital currencies through a multidisciplinary lens, combining information technology and policy analysis to study their potential implications for payments policy, supervision and regulation, financial stability, monetary policy, and the provision of financial services. This work draws from expertise throughout the Federal Reserve System and benefits from engagement with our colleagues internationally."

Even as far back as 2014, David Andolfatto who was Vice President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve at the time, hosted a learning seminar on the topic where he made the bold statement that cryptocurrency and blockchain tech "will force traditional institutions to adapt, or die.”

 It's important to think about the private discussions behind the scenes that lead up to a move like this, it’s a sign the Federal Reserve's leadership are in agreement that cryptocurrency is here to stay.  This wouldn't be worth doing if they thought otherwise.

Their index is already live and you can take a look for yourself at fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=kdpi

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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk