Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would prevent the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration from moving forward with a direct-to- consumer central bank digital currency, CBDC, which would effectively be a dollar-based criptocurrency. The federal government is studying the possibility of a U.S. CBDC under an executive order President Joe Biden signed in March 2022.
Cruz said that the federal government has no authority to unilaterally establish a central bank currency. The bill is a long way in making sure that big government doesn't try to centralize or control cryptocurrencies, and allows it to thrive in the United States. We should be empowering entrepreneurs, enabling innovation, and increasing individual freedom, not stifling it. The bill was co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Braun R-Ind. The government should not allow Americans to control their financial information and increase surveillance of Americans financial activity, according to a report by Braun. The federal government shouldn't have more control over your own money. I support this legislation to allow entrepreneurship to prosper and keep the federal government from encroaching on your privacy rights. The American people should be able to spend their money the way they choose without the possibility that every transaction could be tracked by the government, Grassley said. The bill would make sure that no one is snooping on the finances of hardworking Americans, and that Congress should not make government bureaucrats the only ones who are involved in policy this impactful. Everyone in the United States deserves peace of mind. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and several large financial companies — including Citigroup, HSBC, and Wells Fargo — participated in a 12 week digital dollar pilot program with MasterCard and SWIFT that began in mid-November 2022.
The project, known as the Regulatory Liability Network, was conducted in a test environment and used simulated data to determine the feasibility of using digital currencies to speed up transaction settlement times.
In a separate pilot project, the New York Fed innovation center worked with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on how CBDCs impact cross-border payments.
In December 2022, House Financial Services Committee Republicans sent a letter to the Boston Fed about its Project Hamilton initiative with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to research a CBDC, as some private sector firms were planning to use government resources to design a CBDC and sell those products to commercial banks.
Retail CBDCs would be authorized by Congress, but they wouldn't be clear about wholesale CBDCs used in transactions between financial institutions and the Fed, he told lawmakers earlier this month.
Powell noted that we are not at the stage of making any real decisions. We are doing experiments in the early stages of experimentation.