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Top US Financial Regulators Urge Monitoring of Digital Assets, Stablecoins

A panel of top U.S. financial regulators urged federal and state officials to monitor risks from digital assets like bitcoin.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin

A panel of top U.S. financial regulators including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urged federal and state officials to monitor risks from digital assets like bitcoin.

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The recommendation came in an annual report published Wednesday by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, set up after 2008 to help identify emerging risks that could trigger a new banking crisis. The panel also includes U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Heath Tarbert.

"The council recommends that federal and state regulators continue to examine risks to the financial system posed by new and emerging uses of digital assets and distributed ledger technologies," the report said.

U.S. lawmakers and administration officials including Mnuchin and President Donald J. Trump have warned of the risks to the financial system from cryptocurrencies and stablecoins like Facebook's proposed Libra. But some former officials, including ex-CFTC Chair Christopher Giancarlo, have pushed for faster adoption of blockchains, arguing that the country could fall behind other countries as the fast-moving technology develops.

According to the new report, the risks of "existing and planned digital-asset arrangements" could put financial-industry stability in peril "via both direct and indirect connections with banking services, financial markets and financial intermediaries."

The report also cited "risks to consumers, investors and businesses associated with potential losses or instability in market prices" along with "illicit financial risks; risks to national security; cybersecurity and privacy risks; and risks to international monetary and payment system integrity."

Mnuchin said in January 2018 that the FSOC had formed a working group focused on crypto. and the council earlier said the use of decentralized ledgers to store data raised challenges for regulators used to centralized systems.

Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is CoinDesk's managing editor of tech & protocols, where he oversees a team of reporters covering blockchain technology, and previously ran the global crypto markets team. A two-time Loeb Awards finalist, he previously was chief global finance and economic correspondent for TheStreet and before that worked as an editor and reporter for Bloomberg News in New York and Mexico City, reporting on Wall Street, emerging markets and the energy industry. He started out as a police-beat reporter for the Gainesville Sun in Florida and later worked as a general-assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he double-majored in electrical engineering and classical studies as an undergraduate at Duke University and later obtained a master's in journalism from the University of Florida. He is currently based in Austin, Texas, and in his spare time plays guitar, sings in a choir and hikes in the Texas Hill Country. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.

Bradley Keoun