American Lawmakers Consider Launching A Digital Dollar

American lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee started asking questions to the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell regarding whether the country should launch its own digital dollar-a cryptocurrency. Let’s find out more about it in the cryptocurrency news today.

The American lawmakers included Representative Bill foster and Representative French Hill. Foster is currently working as the co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus which is a bipartisan group of legislators who have come together to back blockchain causes in America. The questions in the congressmen’s letter centered around the nature of money and how it is changing and the legislators wanted to know if the FED had any specific views on the central banking system and embracing the changes. The congressman wrote:

 “With the potential for digital currencies to further take on the characteristics and utility of paper money, it may become increasingly imperative that the Federal Reserve take up the project of developing a U.S. dollar digital currency.’’

The American lawmakers stated that the ‘’primacy of the US dollar could be in the long-term jeopardy’’ if a wide adoption of digital fiat currencies happens. If this trend is not stopped, the remarks that the European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde made saying that the central banks might ‘’go beyond regulating cryptocurrencies and develop individual national digital currencies of their own’’ could come true. The congressman also noted to Chairman Powell that the cryptocurrencies can also be money and that they do not have to be stuck in the realm of speculation:

 “While some Americans currently use cryptocurrency for speculative purposes, usage of digital assets may well increasingly align with that of paper money in the future.’’

The representatives also asked the Chairman how the FED will respond to the rise of digital currencies and the risks that the regulatory body can face if this happens. A new wave in the dynamic that comes to the Federal Advisory Council is the Facebook Libra stablecoin that has a problem with popularity among the regulators. Some of the council’s concerns include that Libra or other projects like it could disintermediate banks and the entire financial services as read previously in the latest news on altcoin:

 “Some Council members have suggested that, 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.’’