A United States central bank digital currency (CBDC) is apparently still a top priority for the Federal Reserve, according to U.S. Representative and CBDC opponent Tom Emmer.
“If you don’t think the Fed is pursuing a CBDC, think again,” wrote Emmer in a March 14 post on X, sharing a document that was reportedly given to his staff during a Federal Reserve presentation to Congress.
Only a week earlier during a March 7 hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stressed the U.S. is “nowhere near” recommending or adopting a CBDC “in any form.”
The newly surfaced document doesn’t run in contrast with those comments, but confirms the Fed hasn’t lost sight of CBDCs.
Among the seven “Key Duties” of the Fed’s payment systems, include mentions of Automated Clearinghouse and FedNow — two electronic payments systems that could support the Federal Reserve’s ambition to make the U.S. dollar more digital.
The Federal Reserve released a paper on CBDCs in Jan. 2022 as part of an effort to explore its potential benefits and risks. The central bank is also overseeing the digital dollar project which has undergone several pilot programs in recent months.
In a statement last April, the Fed said it hadn’t made a definitive decision whether it would adopt a CBDC.
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CBDCs have been a touchy subject both within and outside the cryptocurrency industry, with fears of an increasingly surveilled financial system.
In January, former U.S. Donald Trump vowed to “never allow” the creation of a CBDC if he were reelected and recently referred to the digital dollar as a “very dangerous” concept.
“This would be a dangerous threat to freedom, and I will stop it from coming to America.”
U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr has also pledged to fight against the development of the digital dollar, citing CBDCs as a “calamity” for human and civil rights.
Efforts have been made in the U.S. legislature, too, with the House Financial Services Committee recently throwing support behind the Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act, which would prohibit the Federal Reserve from initiating pilot programs to test CBDCs without approval from Congress.
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