CRYPTOCURRENCY: Former US Secretary of the Treasury holds a less harsh discourse on Bitcoin (BTC)
This former US Secretary of the Treasury holds a less harsh discourse on Bitcoin (BTC) , while he was still part of Donald Trump’s team which was making virulent attacks against him. in 2020.
Steven Munchin, less dismissive of Bitcoin
Now that he’s no longer the head of US finance, former US Treasury Secretary Steven Munchin appears to have softened his stance on Bitcoin. The man still does not want the latter in his investment portfolio. However, he did indicate in a July 14 interview on CNBC that his outlook on Bitcoin “has changed a bit” since:
“If people want to buy bitcoin as a substitute, no different than buying gold or some other asset, that’s fine. “
“If people want to buy #bitcoin as a substitute, no different than buying gold or some other asset, it’s fine. I don’t personally want to have it in my portfolio but if people want to that’s perfectly fine,” says @stevenmnuchin1 #btc pic.twitter.com/dmyRp3SXtK
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) July 14, 2021
Munchin had however criticized Bitcoin when he was still in charge, saying that it had no intrinsic value. The former Secretary of the Treasury spoke, during his recent interview, of the importance of the compliance of cryptocurrencies with the regulations, in particular with regard to the law on banking secrecy. It also justifies the green light given in 2020 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to banks to offer cryptocurrency custody services as a desire to apply this law to cryptocurrencies, and more generally to import these. services in a “regulated world”.
And if he still keeps a certain distance from Bitcoin and its cadets, Munchin has publicly displayed his admiration for the blockchain, while stressing the fact that many applications use it today.
Bitcoin on the international scene
Munchin therefore now has a more nuanced discourse on Bitcoin than his former boss. Indeed, former President Donald Trump attacked Bitcoin again in June 2021, calling it a “scam”. The current US administration is not kind to Bitcoin either. While Joe Biden has not shown any particular animosity towards the latter to date, current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is known for her anti-Bitcoin rhetoric.
The dean of cryptocurrencies can still count on the support of certain political figures, such as the senator of the State of Wyoming, Cynthia Lummis, who revealed during the CNBC Financial Advisor Summit, on June 29, 2021, that she held 5 BTC .
We can clearly see that the position of the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), towards Bitcoin, is the opposite of that of the countries of Latin America, such as Paraguay which, in the wake of of El Salvador, could also soon make Bitcoin legal tender.
But if Bitcoin is far from having succeeded in putting most of the greats of this world in its pocket or in its wallet, it still managed to make them tremble. This fear can also be reflected in this warning from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is a branch of the United Nations, towards El Salvador in the process of redrawing the region’s monetary landscape with Bitcoin.
When will the political wind turn definitively in favour of Bitcoin in the United States and in the world in general? Large investment funds seem to ignore this hostility from political leaders and continue to invest in Bitcoin, despite its price falling below $ 30,000.
