Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has given advocates of financial privacy a glimmer of hope – and hinted at how the U.S. might competitively position a future digitized dollar. In testimony before Congress this week, Powell was asked whether the Fed had any “visibility” into China’s progress developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). “Yes, we certainly have that,” Powell said. “But they’re in a completely different institutional context. For example, the idea of having a ledger where you know everybody’s payments, that’s not something that would be particularly attractive in the United States context. ... (full story)