Treasury Secretary Skeptical of Bitcoin

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

In some of her first remarks on the subject of digital assets since Senate confirmation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sounded an alarm on Bitcoin. Her views on the regulation of digital assets more broadly are sure to influence policy in the coming years at the various offices and bureaus within the Treasury Department that oversee the asset class, including the OCC, IRS, OFAC and FinCen.

In a recent interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Secretary Yellen expressed her view that, “I don’t think that Bitcoin . . . is widely used as a transaction mechanism.” She continued, “To the extent it is used I fear it’s often for illicit finance. It’s an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering.” Secretary Yellen also noted that, “It is a highly speculative asset and . . . I think people should be aware it can be extremely volatile. I do worry about potential losses that investors can suffer.”