Janet Yellen Injects A Little FUD Into Cryptos

While there was, as ever within the late U.S. presidential administration, a great deal of confusion and cross-purposes around its policy, such as it was, towards bitcoins and all matters cryptocurrent, the general attitude of Donald Trump was, as befitting a man of his awful generation and even more awful movement, one of clear hostility borne of ignorance and fear. And while there may be a good deal less willful and principled ignorance and conspiratorially-minded fear within the new Biden administration, the hostility looks to be a key point of continuity in this not-particularly-peaceful transfer of power.

During Yellen's Tuesday confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) asked Yellen about the use of cryptocurrency by terrorists and other criminals.

"Cryptocurrencies are a particular concern," Yellen responded. "I think many are used—at least in a transactions sense—mainly for illicit financing."

She said she wanted to "examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that [money laundering] doesn't occur through those channels."

And thanks to her predecessor, she’ll have a lot more information with which to do it.

Treasury nominee Yellen is looking to curtail use of cryptocurrency [Ars Technica]