The Federal Reserve on Bitcoin
The Federal Reserve on Bitcoin is a blog that explores how digital assets can contribute to an improved financial system.
Bitcoin was founded to address an inherent flaw of fiat currencies: their devaluation due to reckless spending and borrowing practices. He took inspiration from Austrian School monetary philosophy espoused by Hayek and Mises as his guide for crafting his currency system.
1. The Future of Money
If you work in business, tech, or finance, digital currencies and crypto could soon become part of your toolbox. Our globalized economy makes economic transactions happen faster than ever, necessitating our monetary system to reflect this reality.
Entrepreneurs of a new generation have developed innovative technologies to make money usage online more secure and reliable, including “blockchain,” an open digital ledger which records transactions transparently. Together with crypto, these two allow users to conduct financial transactions outside traditional institutions such as banks or brokers, using smart contracts which automatically execute when certain conditions are met.
These innovations are giving rise to an emerging industry known as decentralized finance (or DeFi). DeFi businesses offer customers access to essential financial services – borrowing, lending and trading – without incurring costly intermediary fees.
Some have speculated that these technologies could one day replace central banks and national currencies, yet this is an irresponsible idea for two reasons. First, due to global interdependency, mistakes made in one country could quickly have far-reaching consequences; secondly, any future monetary system must include both central banks – which provide the foundation of their systems — as well as private sector entities which specialize in customer facing activities – for optimal functioning.
The Federal Reserve’s goal is to encourage innovation in banking while maintaining safety and soundness, so they have implemented a program to monitor “novel activities” at banks under its purview. The program will draw upon expertise across the Fed to support banks engaging in innovative activities, including partnerships with non-banks or those using cryptoassets or blockchain technology. This program will also assist banks in ensuring that new activities do not pose risks to the financial stability of their systems, and monitor them to assess whether these new activities fit within their broad goals and legal authority.
2. Inflation
Inflation can be a devastating threat to consumers’ economic health. When prices increase, purchasing power diminishes as people spend less money on goods and services – leading to less economic activity overall and ultimately raising unemployment levels.
Inflation has long been seen as a source of instability within nations, leading to long periods of unrest and central bankers becoming known as “inflation hawks” with politicians often promising to combat inflation as part of their electoral platform. While inflation can cause investments such as stocks and real estate to lose value, it can also increase its worth significantly when applied to commodities or gold investments.
Lower-income households tend to feel inflation more severely as prices for everyday items like food and utilities increase due to inflation, with smaller budgets than their higher-income counterparts causing even greater suffering due to rising costs.
inflation can also lead to currency devaluation and economic instability for both domestic and international economies, making inflation management by the Federal Reserve all the more vital – it will raise interest rates if measurements show increased inflation rates.
Inflation can also have a devastating impact on businesses and households’ debts. At high enough inflation rates, debtors may find themselves repaying loans in dollars that have declined in value over time; this can prove particularly troublesome for people on fixed incomes such as retired police officers in Detroit whose pensions have been affected by inflation.
Inflation can be an unpredictable phenomenon, yet its importance to all major stakeholders cannot be overstated. While inflation can often be painful for certain groups of people, sometimes its effects can bring mutual benefits: for instance if housing prices soar due to inflation sellers can potentially profit handsomely from it.
3. The Fed’s Role
The Federal Reserve’s main focus is regulating banks and the US dollar; so crypto-related activities generally fall outside its purview. But it still plays an important role, safeguarding customers’ deposits while maintaining stable money supply levels; as digital dollars flourish further down the path of development, so too must learn what it can and cannot do to support their development.
Recent litigation brought by the Federal Reserve against Bitcoin Magazine alleges that their use of FedNow images and trademarks in a line of merchandise mocking this service violates their intellectual property rights, since using such images “deceptively and misleadingly suggests” that this option for financial settlement exists within government jurisdiction.
Custodia’s lawsuit attempted to demonstrate that the central bank’s refusal to grant it a master account was politically motivated by Washington. Unfortunately for Custodia, however, a judge ruled against its claim, finding instead that no such account was necessary and Custodia couldn’t prove its board of governors influenced its decision – both decisions dealt a significant blow for Custodia and their attorneys.
Custodia Bank, however, remains undeterred: its CEO Matt Toomey made clear in a statement to FOX Business that they will fight on with their case and believe this decision to be the result of an unfair federal government’s attempt at cutting off crypto from accessing payments through the Fed system. Furthermore, Custodia hopes that court’s ruling can put state-chartered banks on an equal playing field with federal institutions in terms of accessing Federal Reserve.
The central bank may not like the concept of cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (CBETs), but they understand they’re here to stay and want to be prepared when they arrive. Therefore, they are taking measures such as mandating banks disclose any cryptocurrency assets held so these can be tracked easily and protected consumers.
4. Regulation
A primary role of the Federal Reserve is regulating financial firms. Before finalizing regulations, they seek public feedback to make their processes transparent and allow interested parties to weigh in on how it could impact them.
In November of 2021, the Fed issued a statement outlining a series of regulatory sprints. One such sprint included issuing a supervisory letter on how banks supervised by them should approach cryptocurrency-related activities, such as “crypto-asset safekeeping and custody; facilitating customer crypto transactions; crypto-collateralized lending; and stablecoin/dollar token issuance and distribution”.
Goal of this initiative: Foster innovative products that support consumer protection and financial inclusion while upholding U.S. banking system safety and soundness. For this to work effectively, the Fed must thoroughly examine both risks and benefits of new products – CBDC included – before proceeding further with development or approval.
CBDC will likely present new risks, with some specific to blockchain economy. For example, consumers could face higher prices as digital tokens are more susceptible to inflation than physical money and value may decrease due to production costs increasing or decreased demand.
Another risk is fraud. Blockchain technology underlying cryptocurrency can be exploited to create fake digital assets and fraudulent transactions that threaten financial market integrity; regulators must take appropriate action.
Legal protections for users of cryptocurrency must also be carefully considered as its ecosystem expands. Although Bitcoin and Ethereum networks are open source, some users own proprietary rights over their private keys which make gaining access difficult. There is currently no established legal framework which covers this aspect; hence the necessity for additional research as blockchain grows in popularity.
As regulations are here to stay, we must accept that they must maximize benefits while minimizing costs. To do this effectively will mean creating regulations that are clear, concise and easy to comprehend – while at the same time acknowledging that blockchain and crypto asset industries are constantly developing; as a result, our approach must remain flexible when considering regulation.