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In testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Facebook subsidiary Calibra CEO David Marcus stated that consumers would be provided with the necessary tools to report their taxes, but added that Calibra does not currently have processes in place to directly provide that information to the IRS. However, Mr. Marcus noted, Facebook "would be happy" to work with the IRS to ease the consumer burden.

The U.S. IRS has begun to focus on cryptos in general, potentially noncompliant taxpayers, and the perceived lack of proper reporting by taxpayers.

Your federal benefits will be automatically deposited to your prepaid debit card account on the payment day. By choosing Direct Express® you have chosen a fast, convenient, and secure way to receive your benefit payments.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he is "highly skeptical" about the a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). He remains "skeptical that a [it] would solve any major problem confronting the U.S. payment system." Waller also said he saw no reason why the dollar wouldn't continue to dominate the international payment system even if other nations started using digital currencies for cross-border contracts. He also found it "implausible... that developing a CBDC is the simplest, least costly way to reach the [unbanked]."

"Enjoying the fruits of legitimization means bearing the legal responsibilities that come with that legitimization. But at the same time, one also hopes that lawmakers do a better job of fusing crypto into Section 9050i than their current iteration. Reporting purchases made with crypto won't take effect until 2024. We have a few years to resolve this."

"The Model Money Transmission Modernization Act, also known as the Money Transmitter Model Law, is a single set of nationwide standards and requirements created by industry and state experts. The law was approved in full by the CSBS Board of Directors in August 2021. As we move forward, CSBS will work to ensure that implementation among states is as uniform as possible, as states may require legislation, regulation or guidance changes to adopt the provisions contained in the law. Please refer to the materials below for the model law language. "

U.S. federal bank regulatory agencies issued a statement summarizing their interagency crypto-asset "policy sprints" and providing a roadmap of future work related to crypto-assets. It summarizes the agencies' plan to provide greater clarity throughout 2022 on whether certain crypto-related activities conducted by banking organizations are legally permissible, and related expectations for safety and soundness, consumer protection, and compliance with existing law and regulations. The focus includes crypto-asset safekeeping and traditional custody services, ancillary custody services including staking, facilitating crypto-asset lending and distributed ledger technology governance services, facilitation of customer purchases and sales of crypto-assets, loans collateralized by crypto-assets, issuance and distribution of stablecoins, and activities involving the holding of crypto-assets on balance sheet.

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) confirmed that national banks and federal savings associations can engage in crypto-asset activities, including providing custodian services, holding fiat reserves for stablecoin operators and operating cryptocurrency network nodes. However, they must demonstrate adequate controls in place before they can do so.

George Selgin: There are a many reasons why I also favor a division of labor in which the Fed sticks to being a wholesale dealer in payments media, leaving the retail side of the business to banks and other private-sector payment services providers.

This opinion piece suggests that the US Congress create a national "payments passport" by allowing money transmitters with at least 40 state licenses to obtain limited access to the payments system, provided they are subject to Federal Reserve regulatory standards and supervision tailored to payments services. State-based licensing and supervisory authority would remain in place, while the Federal Reserve would be empowered to ensure the safety, soundness, and integrity of its own payments system. This framework could also include tailored parent company oversight to protect safety and soundness and be limited to firms whose activities are predominantly financial in nature. And such payments companies would directly originate, clear, and settle payments, but lack access to broader Fed services. They would not be granted full banking powers, limiting the threat to community banks, while the preservation of state-based consumer protections would ease consumer advocates' concerns.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler said his agency is considering how to split oversight of crypto trading platforms between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as most platforms include tokens that fit definitions of securities as well as commodities.

The Boston Fed is looking for a Project Management Director to lead its Project Hamilton work on a hypothetical general purpose central bank digital currency (CBDC) with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Digital Currency Initiative. This research will assist the Fed in more deeply understanding technology tradeoffs among design options, and will result in the open source publication of software to support CBDC research. The new position will presumably report to Jim Cunha, Executive Vice President of Secure Payments and FinTech, who has worked at the Boston Fed since 1984.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected an application for a spot market Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) from First Trust Advisors and SkyBridge. The SEC said it didn't meet "the requirement that the rules of a national securities exchange be 'designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices' and 'to protect investors and the public interest'." The SEC has yet to approve a spot market crypto ETF on concerns over potential price manipulation.

The US Federal Reserve Board published a discussion paper that examines the pros and cons of a potential U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). The paper summarizes the current state of the domestic payments system and discusses the different types of digital payment methods and assets that have emerged in recent years, including stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. It concludes by examining the potential benefits and risks of a CBDC, and identifies specific policy considerations.

George Selgin makes a pitch for the US Fed to facilitate the issuance of synthetic central bank digital currency (sCBDC) as opposed to the intermediated variant (iCBDC) that its recent consultative paper seems to advocate. In the synthetic approach, payment service providers (PSPs) offer digital currency (DC) that is fully backed by reserves held and ring-fenced from the PSPs' other creditors in Fed Master Accounts. In the intermediated approach, the Fed makes CBDC available to the PSPs who would act as the Fed's agents (i.e. as custodians and trustees of end user CBDC holdings). Selgin notes that sCBDC will better promote DC diversity and innovation, because it allows for numerous, entirely distinct retail DCs, whereas iCBDC provides for a single DC only, albeit one offered at and administered by numerous private-sector firms. An iCBDC is likely to be a fairly, if not fully, homogeneous digital product, instead of a set of such products with different features designed to serve the needs of different clients. However, the Fed has so far been reluctant to do open up its Master Accounts to nonbanks, which would be required to get the maximum sCBDC benefits.

Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposal, submitted by Cboe BZX Exchange, has been disapproved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC concluded that BZX did not meet the requirement that the rules of a national securities exchange be "designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices" and "to protect investors and the public interest." Last week, the SEC shot down a proposed spot Bitcoin ETF from First Trust and Skybridge Capital on identical grounds.

The USDF Consortium, an association of FDIC-insured financial institutions, launched, with a mission to build a network of banks to further the adoption and interoperability of a bank-minted USDF stablecoin. USDF will be minted exclusively by U.S. banks and will be redeemable on a 1:1 basis for cash from a Consortium member bank. The Consortium's founding bank members include New York Community Bank, NBH Bank, FirstBank, Sterling National Bank, and Synovus Bank.

"Here we provide a brief overview of stablecoins, outline various risks and policy concerns noted by federal bank regulators and members of Congress, and discuss broad principles to guide development and implementation of a special purpose federal banking charter."

The New York Fed launched the New York Innovation Center (NYIC), to advance a strategic partnership with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub. As part of the New York Fed, the NYIC is collaborating with the Federal Reserve System, the BIS Innovation Hub, and public and private sector experts to validate, design, build, and launch new financial technology products and services for the central bank community.

A NY Fed blog post considers several long-standing goals of central banks in their support and provision of retail payments, why and how central banks tackle these issues, and where central bank digital currency (CBDC) fit into the array of potential solutions. Because CBDCs are new and a range of approaches to implementation are being tried, central banks can learn more about the costs and benefits of CBDCs, relative to other approaches, by engaging in research and development. Answering these questions and uncovering new challenges would require a central bank to go far down the path of implementing a CBDC, whether that CBDC is ultimately adopted or not.