The president of Philadelphia Federal Reserve bank, Patrick Harker has said that the use of digital currencies by central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, is “inevitable”.
Harker was speaking at the community banking conference in St. Louis when he argued that the US should not be the first big nation to issue a national cryptocurrency. This is because technology is still maturing and the US dollar remains the world’s reserve currency.
According to a report from Reuters, the Federal Reserve official said, “It is inevitable … I think it is better for us to start getting our hands around it.”
Harker went onto say:
“I am looking at the next five years after that. What comes next? I do think it is something around digital currency.”
Harker’s comment comes from a heated debate in regards to the overly private issued cryptocurrencies across the globe.
Executives from some of the largest American banks complained to the Federal Reserve earlier this week that Facebook’s Libra stablecoin would pose as a monetary threat in the September Federal Advisory Council meeting.
The executives said:
“As consumers adopt Libra, more deposits could migrate onto the platform, effectively reducing liquidity, and that disintermediation may further expand into loan and investment services.”
Mu Changchun, the crypto head in China, said one of the key aims for the Chinese national stablecoin, Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), is to take action in the rise of Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra even before it even sees release.
“If we allow Libra come to the market, we would open the underground economic channels,” Mu explained. “It will be hard for China to manage foreign currencies and the $50,000 capital outflow cap would be less effective.”
It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. For more news on this and other crypto updates, keep it with CryptoDaily!
Investment Disclaimer