USA doesn’t need a central bank digital currency, says Vice Chair for Supervision Randal K. Quarles
The United States doesn’t need a central bank digital currency (CDBC) because it won’t notably improve the nation’s financial system, nor will it enhance the USA’s ability to compete with either unregulated cryptocurrencies or rival nations’ CDBCs. So said Randal K. Quarles, a member of the US Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and its Vice Chair for Supervision, in a speech delivered on Monday to the 113th Annual Utah Bankers Association Convention. Quarles said one argument he hears in favour of a US CDBC is to counter private cryptocurrencies, which he divided into two classes: “stablecoins and non-stablecoins”; and “cryptoassets, such as Bitcoin”. The Vice Chair was not kind to Bitcoin, which he likened to gold inasmuch as it is scarce, and its price fluctuates. “Unlike gold, however, which has industrial uses and aesthetic attributes quite apart from its vestigial financial role, Bitcoin’s principal additional attractions are its novelty and its anonymity,” he said. “The anonymity will make it appropriately the target for increasingly comprehensive scrutiny from law enforcement, and the novelty is a rapidly wasting asset.
