Warsh’s hawkish stance on Fed policy may have disappointed the crypto world, but he said Bitcoin was effectively gold for anyone under the age of 40.
On Friday, it was revealed that President Trump’s pick to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in May will be Kevin Warsh, who previously served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors during the Bush and Obama administrations. The pick has garnered strong attention in the crypto industry, as Warsh has made mixed statements on bitcoin, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins, and blockchain technology over the years.
While Warsh previously espoused the benefits of CBDCs over stablecoins, he was also an investor in stablecoin startup Basis, which developed a specific type of stablecoin, known as an algorithmic stablecoin, similar to the one involved in the crypto collapse of 2022. Additionally, Warsh was involved in the early days of Bitwise Asset Management, which now operates publicly-traded exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for bitcoin and other crypto assets.
In terms of bitcoin specifically, Warsh has made remarks that range from neutral to positive. He once told CNBC that bitcoin is effectively gold for anyone under the age of 40. More recently, he defended bitcoin in an interview on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, stating, “Bitcoin doesn’t trouble me. I think of it as an important asset that can help inform policy makers when they’re doing things right and wrong. It is not a substitute to the dollar. I think it can often be a very good policeman for policy.â€
When you put together Warsh’s comments on bitcoin and stablecoins, it gels with the Trump administration’s policies on crypto, which include the use of stablecoins to reinforce U.S. monetary hegemony and the establishment of a national bitcoin reserve. Warsh’s remarks on bitcoin acting as a method of keeping policymakers in check will also jive with research from Jal Toorey, who has long-argued bitcoin is the ideal basis for mathematician John Nash’s (yes, the one from A Beautiful Mind fame) Ideal Money concept.
All of this may sound generally positive for bitcoin; however, the reality is the price of the crypto asset initially fell on the news of Warsh’s impending nomination. According to a report in CoinDesk, this was likely due to Warsh’s past remarks that point to a generally more hawkish stance on Fed policy than what was expected from Trump, who has constantly derided Powell for not lowering interest rates. That said, it’s important that the Fed chairman does not have unilateral power over central bank policy.
Although bitcoin is often touted as a safe haven asset similar to gold, it has more often than not moved as a risk-on asset in times of economic uncertainty, as illustrated by the recent tension around Greenland. Of course, gold itself has also been acting much more like bitcoin when it comes to price volatility lately.
At the end of the day, it’s still extremely early in terms of central bank interest in bitcoin, with Governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau recently revealing that he didn’t know bitcoin has no central issuer during a discussion with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at The World Economic Forum. That said, the Czech National Bank did acquire some bitcoin as part of a pilot program last year, not long after European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said such activity would never happen.
It’s difficult to know what Warsh’s exact policy preferences will be once he’s back at the Fed, but his nomination does further the discussion around a potential synergistic relationship between bitcoin and the U.S. dollar. With U.S. debt having reached unsustainable levels and foreign central banks holding more gold than U.S. treasuries for the first time since 1996, one has to wonder if an economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin was right to call out the United States for their alleged crypto-focused plan to maintain monetary dominance in an increasingly digital and seemingly multi-polar world. That said, as the use of Tether stablecoin USDT by the Maduro regime in Venezuela and the Central Bank of Iran has shown, crypto can also be a double-edged sword for the U.S.
Of course, there’s also the matter of the Trump family fortune now being tied to the success of the crypto industry in the U.S. to consider, with $1.4 billion in crypto profits enjoyed last year amid allegations of unprecedented corruption and pay-to-play schemes. This sort of profiteering could eventually lead to political backlash, as Senate Democrats have repeatedly stated these conflicts of interest need to be addressed in the CLARITY Act.
