After a full retrace to $38,000 left crypto traders disappointed, Bitcoin’s swift bounce back up to the $42,000 range comes amid leaked comments from Treasury Chair Janet Yellen about the upcoming executive order to be signed by President Biden.
The Treasury Department appears to have inadvertently released a statement from Yellen earlier than planned, before deleting the announcement from its website.
Yellen said,
“President Biden’s historic executive order calls for a coordinated and comprehensive approach to digital asset policy. This approach will support responsible innovation that could result in substantial benefits for the nation, consumers, and businesses. It will also address risks to illicit finance, protecting consumers and investors, and preventing threats to the financial system and broader economy.”
Yellen goes on to say that the executive order calls for an inter-agency collaboration to report on digital assets, as well as work with international agencies to promote regulatory integrity.
In short, Yellen’s leaked comments confirmed what the market already knew from previous reports anyway, and that there won’t be any major surprises as it pertains to the regulation of crypto.
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President Biden is expected to sign the order later today, and crypto markets appear optimistic. Bitcoin is up nearly 9% on the day while major equities indices are also back in the green after trending down in the prior half of the week.
The executive order has been highly anticipated, with numerous rumors and reports on it swirling around for weeks. According to sources at Bloomberg, Chair Yellen was at one point opposed to the order, saying that it was unnecessary and obstructed ongoing research on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Anonymous sources told Reuters,
“We could see a significant shift in policy in 180 days. This is a likely step toward creation of a central bank digital currency.”
As it stands now, however, the new regulation appears to be fairly benign, and only provides a vague framework for tackling the digital asset space, at least for now.
