U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen talked about cryptocurrency in an interview with CNBC Friday. She was asked about cryptocurrency given that Russia has said it is considering accepting bitcoin as payment for energy resources.
Yellen replied:
Crypto has obviously grown by leaps and bounds and it’s now playing a significant role, not really so much in transactions, but in investment decisions of lots of Americans.
She proceeded to explain that President Joe Biden’s executive order tasks the treasury department and other federal agencies with “thinking about the regulation of crypto.”
When asked about whether she is still skeptical about crypto, the treasury secretary commented: “I have a little bit of skepticism because I think there are valid concerns around it. Some have to do with financial stability, consumer-investor protection, use for illicit transactions, and other things.” She added:
On the other hand, there are benefits from crypto and we recognize that the innovation in the payment system can be a healthy thing.
“We would like to come out eventually with recommendations that will create a regulatory environment” for healthy innovation, she opined.
However, a senior official with the department subsequently said that the Treasury does not see that crypto could be used in a large-scale way to evade sanctions.