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Scott Bessent, who is immersed in the Senate confirmation process as President-elect Donald Trump's Treasury secretary nominee, only addressed crypto briefly.
Jan 16, 2025, 8:10 p.m. UTC
U.S. senators questioning President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, didn't spend much time on cryptocurrency issues in his nomination hearing on Thursday. But he had a chance to register strong opposition to a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) and to note that he favors a modern outlook on crypto.
The billionaire hedge fund manager told the Senate Finance Committee, which is set to consider confirmation of his nomination, that the Federal Reserve shouldn’t issue a digital dollar — a controversial idea that's widely seen by the crypto industry as a governmental incursion on its turf.
"I see no reason for the U.S. to have a central bank digital currency," he said. "In my mind, a central bank digital currency is for countries who have no other investment alternatives."
Dozens of countries around the world, notably China, have launched or piloted CBDCs. But Bessent they have generally pursued them out “out of necessity," and that the U.S. has no need.
Read More: U.S. Fed Chair Powell Says 'Nowhere Near' Pursuing CBDC, Won't Spy on Americans
At another point in Thursday's hearing, he was asked about the department's financial-crimes arm, and in the context of terrorist financing, he said, "I believe we have to have a 2025 approach to … digital currencies."
The sentiment was immediately embraced by the crypto-backed Ceder Innovation Foundation in a social-media post, saying, "Too many politicians have been working with a 20th century outlook which not only hurts digital innovators, but also global security."
Bessent, who made his fortune in hedge funds, shed hundreds of thousands of dollars in a bitcoin exchange-traded fund investment after accepting Trump's nomination, demonstrating he's had skin-in-the-game to back up his pro-crypto rhetoric.
"Crypto is about freedom and the crypto economy is here to stay," he said in an interview with Fox Business in July.
Read More: Trump Picks Pro-Crypto Hedge Fund Manager Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary
Jesse Hamilton
Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.
