US Financial Elites Express Their Worry Over Stablecoins and Cryptocurrencies

A board of elite financial regulators in the US has administered a warning to the general public on the inherent dangers of Stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.

On the 4th of December, the Financial Stability Oversight Council pointed out in its warning, possible troubles that could arise if Stablecoins gain acceptance.

The FSOC was established in 2008, after the 2008 global financial meltdown, to tackle possible threats to the financial industry. The board is Chaired by US Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin and the board’s voting members comprise of the Chairman of the SEC as well as the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

FSOC’s Inhibition Towards Stablecoins
The regulators registered their distrust for Stablecoins in their annual report for the year. To explain, they employed an analogy in which Stablecoins become accepted into the financial system and gain recognition as a store of value. If a disruption were to occur in Stablecoins in that situation, it could spell doom for the economy as a whole.

They added that financial regulators needed to evaluate possible threats that could arise from the adoption of digital assets. The FSOC also cited Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies as threats to the economy. However, it seemed like they were incapable of providing concrete reasons for their distrust of cryptos.

The board went on to express their skepticism towards Distributed Ledger Technology stating that the successes and applications of the technology in the financial industry were “still uncertain”.

Mnuchin’s Unreserved Dislike for Bitcoin
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has always been against the idea of Bitcoin and has expressed his distrust for the cryptocurrency multiple times. In an interview in July, he asserted that in a five or six years from the time, Bitcoin would be extinct, saying that at that time he would have other priorities and not Bitcoin.

He also assured that he would never be personally involved with the cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, US lawmakers are still focused on tackling the perceived threats emanating from the crypto industry, especially Facebook’s proposed Stablecoin project, Libra.