While China and the European Union rush forward on creating a digital currency, the U.S. doesn’t see the need for one in at least the next five years, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell poured cold water on the idea of a United States-issued central bank digital currency happening anytime soon. Responding to two Congressmen, Powell wrote, “it is not yet clear what additional value a general purpose CBDC could provide in the U.S.”
France’s economy and finance minister has put the first real spoke in the wheels of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, promising to block its use in the European Union.
Facebook is in for a rough ride with its Libra cryptocurrency project. If that wasn’t clear from the president’s anti-cryptocurrency Tweets last week and Treasury Secretary’s comments on Monday that they are “a national security issue,” it was very obvious after the Facebook executive spearheading its Libra payment system was treated like a bipartisan punching bag in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on July 16.
