The rats are leaving the sinking ship. I think this is as big of a sign as any that we are close to the end. This is the 4th Fed board member to jump ship this year…
Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles speech on cryptocurrencies "In contrast to stablecoins, cryptoassets like bitcoin are not tied to the value of an asset like a sovereign currency. Rather, they seek to create value in the coin through other means, usually some intrinsic mechanism to ensure scarcity, like bitcoin's mining process, or some characteristic of the coin that cannot be matched by the traditional payment system, such as inviolable anonymity. Some commentators assert that the United States must develop a CBDC to counter the appeal of cryptocurrencies. This seems mistaken. The mechanisms used to create such cryptoassets' value also ensure that this value will be highly volatile—rather similar to the fluctuating value of gold, which, like bitcoin, draws a significant part of its value from its scarcity, and like bitcoin, does not play a significant role in today's payments or monetary system. Unlike gold, however, which has industrial uses and aesthetic attributes quite apart from its vestigial financial role, bitcoin's principal additional attractions are its novelty and its anonymity. The anonymity will make it appropriately the target for increasingly comprehensive scrutiny from law enforcement and the novelty is a rapidly wasting asset. Gold will always glitter, but novelty, by definition, fades. Bitcoin and its ilk will, accordingly, almost certainly remain a risky and speculative investment rather than a revolutionary means of payment, and they are therefore highly unlikely to affect the role of the U.S. dollar or require a response with a CBDC."
