| Inner City Press Asks IMF
of Crypto Interest or Yield
Payments US Banks Oppose Answer
Here
by
Matthew Russell Lee
NYC,
Nov 13 –
When the IMF held its biweekly
embargoed press briefing on
November 13, Inner City Press
was able to ask the Fund's
spokesperson Julie Kozack
about lobbying by US banks
against cryptocurrency
platforms paying interest or
yield under the GENIUS Act,
about the market structure
legislative proposals by
Senators Boozman and Booker,
and stablecoins.
From the IMF
transcript:
Matthew Russell
Lee, Inner City Press: You
were just asked about AI
bubble, so I wanted to ask
about cryptocurrency.
The current administration is
very, very pro crypto, and
there's some debate. The
banks in the United States are
lobbying to say that crypto
platforms shouldn't be allowed
to pay interest or yield and
thereby become kind of an
alternative or sucking out
deposits from the banking
system. I wondered if
the UN has any, excuse me, if
the IMF has any view of
that? You've given some
policy guidance to other
countries, but what generally
does the IMF think about
cryptocurrency and digital
asset platforms paying
interest or yield in
competition with banks?
And the implications. Thanks.
MS. KOZACK: on
crypto and stablecoins, I
don't have a specific answer
to your question on interest
payments. But what I can
say is that digital assets and
payments are driven by new
technologies. Some are
in the form of unbacked crypto
assets like Bitcoin.
Some are stablecoins.
Some are other tokenized
assets. Some are Central
Bank digital currencies.
And all of this kind of new
infrastructure around digital
payments, this is a big
technological transformation
that could reshape the
International Monetary
System. So, it's
something that we are paying
very close attention to at the
IMF. Some of these digital
assets offer the promise of
more efficient payments,
broader financial inclusion,
and new instruments for
cross-border
transactions. But at the
same time, they do also
introduce some risks.
Those risks are more acute in
the case of unbacked crypto
assets. And the risks,
of course, must be carefully
managed. And so, some of
our work is really around
assessing the potential risks
and looking and working with
our membership on how those
risks can be best mitigated to
ensure that the introduction
of these new assets are
consistent with macroeconomic
and financial stability, that
they're consistent with
consumer and investor
protection, and they're
consistent with financial and
market integrity.
She also
said that the IMF's Article IV
consultation with the US has
been delayed, citing the
government shutdown ended on
November 12.
Previously, IMF
spokesperson Kozack in
response to Inner City Press'
July questions on crypto
offered some praise and some
cautions. Video.
Inner City
Press also asked in July if El
Salvador is in fact merely
moving Bitcoin it already owns
between its own wallets,
rather than buying more - that
seems to be the case. Video
More video,
including of
November 13,
coming on
IMF's website.
***
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