Joe Biden has picked Janet Yellen as the Treasury Secretary and yesterday (January 20) after the swearing-in of the 46th president of the United States. Janet Yellen has unveiled her policy for cryptocurrencies, which also includes bitcoin. She insists that cryptocurrencies are predominantly used for illegal financing and their use needs to be “curtailed”.
Yellen is an American economist who was a first-ever woman and the 15th chair of the Federal She is also a Professor Emerita at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She is Joe Biden’s pick/ president-elect to lead the Treasury Department under his administration.
Janet was asked about cryptocurrencies in the senate hearing In the Senate hearing which determined her nomination as the Secretary of Treasury. To judge Janet Yellen’s nomination for the Secretary of the Treasury on Tuesday, Yellen was questioned about her take on cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency question was posed by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), who stressed the importance of “the importance of treasury programs to combat the financing of terrorists and criminal organizations.” Maggie Hassan had raised this issue in the last presidential term to the then secretary of the treasury, Steven Mnuchin.
Senator Hassan said in the hearing,
“The bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act passed earlier this month and it included a provision led by Senator Warner that established an advisory group with Treasury to counter new ways that terrorists use emerging financial technology,”. “One area of growing concern, for example, is the potential for terrorists and criminals to use cryptocurrency to finance their activities.”
The question that followed the excerpt from Senator Hassan was, “So Dr Yellen, can you outline some of these emerging technological concerns and how Treasury should combat new forms of terrorists and criminal financing?”
Dr Janet Yellen, the incoming Treasury Secretary replied saying that Senator Maggie Hassan was “absolutely right” to say that the technologies to accomplish this change over time and that there should be the need to make sure that methods for dealing with these matters with tech terrorists financing change along with changing technology.
| “Cryptocurrencies are a particular concern. I think many are used, at least in a transactions sense, mainly for illicit financing and I think we really need to examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that anti-money laundering doesn’t occur through those channels”.
Dr Janet Yellen, Secretary of Treasury, USA |
The first NFL player who was paid in bitcoin, Russell Okung commented in reply to Dr Yellen’s statement: “Treasury Sec nominee Yellen says bitcoin is a concern for terrorist financing, money laundering… as if the USD isn’t. Don’t be distracted. The things of old are passing away, fight for your future.”
Dan Held who is a Growth Lead at crypto exchange Kraken said that only 0.3% of cryptocurrencies are used for illegal transactions but 90% of the USD have cocaine on them. An economist quickly opposed her statement saying that “when we all know that the vast majority of money laundering globally is conducted in fiat currencies, particularly in U.S. dollars and euros.”
