Bureaucrats Want to Own Crypto-World Doesn’t End (Yet!) 😱

by

Great news for anyone who’s ever stared at the Federal Reserve building and thought, “Gosh, I wonder if those potted plants near the guard desk moonlight as crypto millionaires.” Apparently the Fed’s top rule-writer-Michelle Bowman, human and (as far as we know) not a potted plant-has decided that staff should be allowed to own teeny, tiny, barely-a-rounder-dinner-plate full quantities of digital coins.

She floated this brainwave at a blockchain hoedown in Wyoming on Tuesday, because nothing says “21st century technology” quite like a landlocked state stuffed with cowboys and geeks. Bowman’s pitch: why not let Fed staff clutch a de minimus amount-Latin for “too small for the accounting software to care”-so they actually grasp how one sends an ether to Janet Yellen without accidentally donating it to an NFT of her high-school yearbook photo.

“There’s no replacement for experimenting and understanding how that ownership and transfer process flows,” she chirped, presumably while mentally rehearsing the phrase “Bitcoin: Powered by Decentralization and Awkward Holiday Conversations.”

Under present rules, most Fed employees, plus their spouses and possibly their goldfish, are forbidden from owning crypto, crypto ETFs, or shares in companies whose only product is a cartoon of a cyber-snow-leopard wielding a laser cannon. The ban came just after the 2022 shock when three top officials engaged in trading so eyebrow-raising even Helen Mirren’s arch-glam brows would’ve whistled in admiration.

Translation: “We can’t hire anyone who knows what Web3 is unless we let them dabble.” 🤡

Bowman also played the recruitment card, warning that the restriction is “a barrier to attracting examiners who can tell the difference between a validator and a metro concession stand.” She analogy-splained:

“I certainly wouldn’t trust someone to teach me to ski if they’d never put on skis, regardless of how many books they’ve read or TED talks they’ve delivered while holding coffee in one hand and existential dread in the other.”

Bowman to Other Regulators: “Shall We Frolic or Take a Nap?”

Clearly allergic to skeptical mindsets, Bowman scolded her fellow regulators for exhibiting the financial equivalent of pulling the duvet over one’s head and hoping the evil blockchain goes away. Some bankers, she noted with no detectable irony, worry that distributed ledgers will replace their traditional business models-in the same way wheeled suitcases replaced laurels for every Steadicam-smooth baggage handler.

Her ultimatum: step aboard the sleigh ride of innovation or watch it zip past while you stand in the snow, clutching your exchange-listing rejection letters. “We must choose whether to embrace the change,” she declared, possibly eyeing the open bar labeled “All the Ripple you can’t legally touch-yet.”

But Wait, There’s More Trump Kabuki

Bowman didn’t specify if staff could own Dogecoin, WorldCoin, CupCoin, or the newly minted RegretCoin (motto: Buy but never tell your adult children). Still, her remarks ride the wider crypto-friendly wave stirred up by the Trump administration, which recently voted to retire a Biden-era supervision program on cryptocurrency seen by some as about as welcome as a cactus in bicycle shorts.

In case you’re playing Disaster-Bingo, the President also signed an executive order earlier this month instructing banking watchdogs to snoop around claims of “debanking” made by the crypto crowd, who insist traditional banks treat them like someone trying to pay rent with Monopoly money that screams on contact with sunlight.

Trade Secrets: On the rumor front, unnamed sources claim Ether could “rip like 2021” while SOL traders brace for a 10% drop, giving diligent Fed staffers-bless their soon-to-be-guilty consciences-something to stare at on their phones during interminable policy meetings.

Read More

2025-08-20 05:12