U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin commented on cryptocurrency’s future viability, in an interview on Wednesday.
“I can assure you I will personally not be loaded up on bitcoin in 10
years,” Mnuchin said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “I would bet even in five to
six years I won’t even be talking about bitcoin as Treasury Secretary.”
While Mnuchin’s comments today do not elucidate his specific
regulatory policies, he said previously that cryptocurrencies pose “risk
to the financial system” if misused like Swiss bank accounts.
To prevent financial crime or monetary distortion, the Secretary has
called upon the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to design guidance that will hold
cryptocurrencies to the highest standards.
Today he added, “We’re going to make sure we have a unified approach
and my guess is that there are going to be more regulations that come
out from all these agencies.”
On July 18, Mnuchin erroneously claimed that fiat currencies are not
vehicles for money laundering, while “there are billions of dollars of
transactions going on in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for illicit
purposes.”
Several media outlets – including Squawk Box anchor Joe Kernan, at
the time – responded with incredulity. Tom Robinson, CEO of research
firm Elliptic, wrote an OpEd for VentureBeat claiming, “Less than 0.5 percent of bitcoin transactions are used for illicit purchases.”
While Mnuchin seems to think crypto’s future is bleak, he continues to bat for the U.S. dollar.
Mnuchin added later in today’s interview, “I think the dollar is the
reserve currency in the world. It’s in our interest. We want to maintain
it.”
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