Fed Governor: US Doesn’t Need A CBDC

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Fed Governor Says The U.S. Doesn’t Need A Digital Dollar

In a speech delivered yesterday at Harvard University, U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller expressed his disapproval of the prospect of a fed-issued digital currency. He stated: 

“A U.S. CBDC is unlikely to dramatically reshape the liquidity or depthy of U.S. capital markets. It is unlikely to affect the openness of the U.S. economy, reconfigure trust in U.S. institutions, or deepen America’s commitment to the rule of law. […] Meaningful efforts are underway at the international level to improve cross-border payments in many ways, with the vast majority of these improvements coming not from CBDCs but improvements to existing payment systems.” 

Waller elaborated that he is sskeptical of arguments put forward by CBDC advocates that a digital dollar would address fraud, theft and money laundering or improve payments more than existing technologies. 

Discussions around a U.S. CBDC began in earnest after China started experimenting with their digital yuan. But the Fed governor cast doubt on a foreign CBDC began in earnest after China started experimenting with a digital yuan. But the Fed governor cast doubt on a foreign CBDC  supplanting the U.S. dollar’s digital global reserve currency status, an argument put forward in support of a digital dollar. 

Fed CHair Jerome Powell and Vice Chair Lael Brainard have also begun publicly putting brakes on the possibility of a U.S. CBDC happening anytime soon. 

Even if a foreign CBDC takes off, Waller said, the effects of companies using it “will likely only be on the margin because they rely on a large enough number of individuals and businesses being nearly indifferent between the dollar and the foreign currency in CBDC form.” 

Waller sees privately-issued stablecoins strengthening, rather than weakening, the dollar, since so many are pegged to the world’s dominant fiat currency. 

THe Fed governor argued that “they may increase rather than reduce the primacy of the dollar abroad, since demand for stablecoins increases demand for dollar-denominated reserve assets held by the stablecoin issuer.” 

The new payments technology must also be, “risk-managed and subject to a robust supervisory and regulatory framework,” said Waller, echoing similar warnings from the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the American super committee of financial regulators, and the Financial Stability Board, an international advisory consortium for central bankers and other senior officials. 

Negotiations continue over stablecoins legislation in Congress, though, the lead Republican negotiator, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said earlier this week that the Biden administration is holding up progress on the bill.

$114M-Dollar Mango Markets Exporter Outs Himself, Returns Most of the Money

In a statement issued yesterday, a man by the name of ‘Avraham Eisenberg’ confirmed that he was part of the group that orchestrated the $114 million exploit on Mango Markets. He returned $67 million to the Solana-based DeFi hub on Saturday as he defended his actions. 

Eisenberg stated, 

“I was involved with a team that operated a highly profitable trading strategy last week. I believe all of our actions were legal and open market actions, using the protocol as designed, even if the development team did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting parameters the way they are.” 

Eisenberg’s name was first linked to the attack when independent reporter Chris Burnet published an article providing some evidence connecting Eisenberg to the attack. Leaked screenshots of Discord chats outlining the attack strategy and suspicious on-chain activity after the incident were among the evidence. 

Mango Markets said in a tweet that its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) community would vote in the coming days to decide how to divvy up their returned funds. Mango’s thread did not lay out a timeline for refunds but said there would be “multiple DAO votes next week.” 

“Everything has to go through DAO proposals,” Daffy Durairaj, co-founder of Mango Markets, wrote in the prospect’s Discord. “My personal goal is to make depositors whole and that’s what I’ll aim towards. But the mix of tokens and positions everyone had might be different.”

North Korean Hacker Group Lazarus Targets Japanese Crypto Firms

According to a joint statement issued by Japan’s National Police Agency and the Financial Services Agency of Japan, the North Korean hacking group, Lazarus, has been identified as the entity behind several years of crypto-related cyber-attacks on numerous Japanese crypto funds. 

These attacks were reportedly carried out through phishing and social engineering methods. Lazarus compromised the internal systems of target companies by sending a malware-infected link that installs the malware on the targeted computer once the victim clicks the link. 

Lazarus is said to have been sharing these links via email and social media. 

Lazarus Group is accused of being behind the $625 million Ronin Bridge exploit, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic also traced the $100 million dollar Horizon Bridge hack back to Lazarus in June. 

THe Japanese National Police Agency didn’t reveal any of the companies involved or amounts stolen, but it did name the hacker group – something the agency rarely does before arrest, in order to prevent a potential hack from happening.

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Luke Baldwin
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