United States Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen made a comment on digital currencies during a public event. While addressing post-Covid-19 economic recovery, Yellen stated that crypto assets could provide “faster and cheaper” options of payment.
In addition, Yellen believed that digital currencies posed many issues, which she believed that the federal regulators need to look into. Some of these issues include consumer protection, and money laundering, among others.
However, Yellen’s stance on Bitcoin remains the same; she stated that the asset was “extremely inefficient for conducting transactions.” She also believed that the world’s largest digital currency is a “highly speculative asset.”
At the same time, Yellen sounded positive about digital currencies backed by central banks and said that it “makes sense for the federal reserve to study digital dollar currency.”
Even before taking on the role of secretary of the treasury, she did not have a positive opinion about Bitcoin. At the time, she thought that cryptocurrencies are used mainly for illicit financing. Yellen also wanted to examine ways to curtail their use, in order to prevent anti-money laundering through Bitcoin use.
Besides Janet Yellen, officials across the globe have even called for regulation for monitoring Bitcoin. This includes ECB President Christine Lagarde, who also said that the crypto was a “highly speculative asset.”
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $53,671.29, marking a 6.2% drop in prices in the last 24 hours.
