JACKSON HALL, WY — Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller preached in a speech at Jackson Hole Wednesday that there can be “nothing frightening” about digital assets innovation.
“When you think about smart contracts, tokenization, or distributed ledgers, there’s nothing to fear,” he said at the Salt Conference. “Utilizing innovative technologies to build new payment services is not a new story.”
Reportedly the top pick for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Waller has long been a supporter of the industry and stable.
Waller, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, said that some of the top innovations have been “demeaned” over the past few years because they were tied to digital assets.
“They’re just technology. Why are they so bad?” he said. “If it leads to a more convenient and interesting way of doing things, we should look at it and adopt it.”
Waller said the Fed is considering how to tokenize things and how to use smart contracts, as well as distributed ledgers.
“We may never go that route as a central bank, but there is no reason not to explore to see what happens,” he said.
The day after he served as vice-chairman for overseeing Michelle Bowman, Waller said the industry should likewise be better treated by banks and bank regulators and praised tokenization.
Join Crypto Policy Conversation on September 10th at DC – Sign up for Coindesk: Policy & Regulation now.
