Today’s news includes breaking remarks by former CFTC Commissioner Sharon Bowen suggesting that it’s time for the U.S. to get serious about consideration of a central bank digital coin.
Mohammad Musharraf at Cointelegraph reports Bowen made the remarks in a webinar posted by Accenture, in which she suggested that the United States could fall behind other nations in developing these types of digital assets.
“(Bowen) said that a CBDC would help the U.S. dollar maintain prominence in the world economy,” Musharraf writes.
Looking further into Bowen’s concerns, we see that she is suggesting other external national cryptocurrencies could destabilize the American economy by offering seductive alternatives to traditional investment options.
“It’s really important that we decide how that technology would operate alongside our existing and future financial systems,” Bowen reportedly said. “We need to make sure that these markets are free from operational risk and system outages and, you know, to make sure that we continue to have a resilient financial system.”
When it comes to business, Bowen is no lightweight. This is from her page at CFTC:
“Ms. Bowen’s practice has included corporate, finance and securities transactions for large global corporations and financial institutions, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, securities offerings, strategic alliances, corporate restructurings, leveraged finance, securitizations, distressed debt and asset acquisitions and venture capital financings.”
We’ve reported on these types of urgings by Christopher GIancarlo and Hester Pierce, in the context of broader blockchain developments stateside. We’ve also seen legislators try to balance the need to innovate with the risks of fraud and dark web activity around decentralized digital assets. With Bowen adding her two cents, and others coming around to broader promotion of CBDCs and crypto developments, we may see yet that in many ways 2020 will be the year of the blockchain after all.
