With less than two months till his inauguration, Joe Biden is considering the former chairman of the commodity Futures Trading Commission for a permanent position in his administration.
A CNBC Nov 5 report says that the president-elect has floated Gary Gensler’s name for a position as Deputy Treasury Secretary starting 2021. The report states that those in the know around the transition neighborhood, have mentioned Gensler as a possible candidate for the position. If Gensler gets the job as expected, he will be reporting to former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who is tipped to get head the Secretary of Treasury docket.
A possible clash on Blockchain and Cryptos?
If both go on to occupy the seats they are being tipped for, it could be an interesting time for Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Gary Gensler believes in the Blockchain and currently serves as a senior adviser at the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative. The initiative conducts research on the Blockchain and digital currencies with the overall aim of fostering adoption and further innovation. Yellen on the other hand is not convinced by the new technology. The soon to be Secretary of the Treasury has been critical of crypto in the past and called Bitcoin “anything but useful” in the months following the 2017 bull run.
Despite having those differences with his soon to be boss, Gensler has something in common with Yellen in terms of being a tough regulator. Gensler, who is now part of the Biden-Harris transition team served as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2014. Gensler was known as a stringent regulator who helped reform the $400 trillion financial derivatives market among a host of other achievements.
With President Donald Trump having given the Biden team the green light to start plans on transition, the president-elect will soon announce candidates for additional positions this week.
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