Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Compares Bitcoin to Gold

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he can envision a return to an era where multiple currencies are in use in the United States.

During Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Facebook’s planned Libra cryptocurrency, he said: “The size of Facebook’s network means it could be, essentially, immediately systemically important.”

Though the initiative raised “a lot of serious concerns,” including privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability, he began to speak favorably about other cryptocurrencies.

“Almost no one uses bitcoin for payments, they use it more as an alternative to gold,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It's a speculative store of value.”

Powell has stated in the past that the United States should not return to the gold standard. Some took the statement as referring to a call to "drop gold, buy bitcoin."

Disclosure: Silbert is the head of CoinDesk owner DCG.

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