Fed Chair Backtracks On CBDC Comments, But Is He Truthful?

March 7, 2024 7:51 pm Comments

During a recent Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was grilled about the Fed’s purported plans to develop and issue a central bank digital currency.

The central banker firmly denied that the Federal Reserve Banking System was even close to thinking about developing a CBDC and attempted to assure the American people that even if such a digital currency were developed, it would not be used to spy on Americans.

U.S. lawmakers posed concerns about the risks of a centralized digital currency and argued that the privacy and civil liberty risks would put the United States on track to become like the Chinese Communist Party—which tracks every transaction made by citizens.

There has been much pushback against the creation of a CBDC in America—particularly from Republican lawmakers.

However, Powell’s recent comments did nothing to assuage the concerns of Americans, who overwhelmingly did not believe his statements.

CoinDesk provided this statement from Powell:

“We’re nowhere near recommending – or let alone adopting – a central bank digital currency in any form,” Powell told the Senate Banking Committee in a hearing Thursday on monetary policy, adding that “people don’t need to worry about it.”

Hotep Jesus asked: “Jerome Powell said people don’t need to worry about a CBDC and it would never support SPYING on Americans. He also said that if there were such a system it would go through the banking system. Do you believe him?”

The Block continued with his comments:

The last thing we would want — we, the Federal Reserve, would want — would be to have individual accounts for all Americans, or any Americans for that matter,” Powell said. “Only banks have accounts at the Fed and that’s the way we’re going to keep it.”

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