Powell pledges to publish CBDC report in coming weeks

The Fed report on the findings of the study into the national digital currency (CBDC) will be published in the coming weeks. Powell said this during Senate on his renomination.

“The report is ready… I expect we will publish it… in the coming weeks,” he said.

The head of the monetary authorities warned that the document is not exhaustive, but “it is more of a warm-up in shaping questions for the public”.

In March, it was reported that staff at the Boston Fed and MIT will complete work on creating a prototype of the digital dollar by July. Such experiments at the Fed began in February 2020.

Powell noted that for the United States it’s important not to be first to issue a CBDC, but to do so with the right approach. Following the September 2021 meeting, he announced the release of a report on the digital dollar “in the near future”.

In that same month the Fed broadened research into digital currencies. A number of regional banks joined the regulator’s initiative. It was noted that within the project, various distributed ledger platforms are being created and tested.

In December, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that Congress, the Fed and the White House need to reach agreement on a number of issues related to CBDC issuance.

Earlier, Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller doubted the wisdom of issuing a CBDC. His colleague Randall Quarles expressed a similar view. At the same time, another Federal Reserve official Lael Brainard said that the country needs to accelerate the development of the digital dollar without delay.

Earlier, US lawmakers expressed concern about lagging behind China in CBDC development. Fed experts described cryptocurrencies as one of the potential threats to the dollar’s hegemony in the long run.

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