Summary

In a significant address at the SALT conference held in Jackson Hole, Chris Waller, a Federal Reserve Governor, emphasized that there is “nothing scary” about advancements in the domain of digital assets. This speech follows a trend of positive feedback from top officials regarding the cryptocurrency sector.

“There is nothing to be afraid of when thinking about smart contracts, tokenization or distributed ledgers,” Waller expressed. Leveraging innovative technology to build new payment services is not a new story.

This statement highlights his long-standing support for the burgeoning industry and innovations like stablecoins. Appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, Waller questioned why technologies related to digital assets have been demonized: “Those are just technologies, why are they so bad? If they lead to more useful and interesting ways to do things, then we should be looking at and adopting it too.”

Waller also mentioned that the Federal Reserve is exploring the use of technologies such as tokenization, smart contracts, and distributed ledgers, indicating the potential for future applications in central banking.

His remarks come shortly after Michelle Bowman, another Fed official, advocated for better treatment of the crypto industry by banks and regulators, further indicating a shift in the Federal Reserve’s stance towards cryptocurrency.