Catherine Hollander
nationaljournal.com
February 27, 2014
The Federal Reserve Board doesn’t have the authority to regulate bitcoin, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Thursday.
“To the best of my knowledge, there’s no intersection at all in any way between bitcoin and banks the Federal Reserve has the ability to supervise or regulate,” Yellen told members of the Senate Banking Committee. “The Federal Reserve simply does not have authority to supervise or regulate bitcoin in any way.”
Yellen was responding to questioning from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who sent the Fed and other banking regulators a letter on Wednesday calling on them to ban—or at least curb—the decentralized, virtual currency’s use in the United States. Manchin has expressed concerns about bitcoin’s anonymity making it appealing for criminals.
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