Share this article
Biden to Tap Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary
Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to be tapped to run the Treasury Department, where she would oversee federal agencies that impact crypto.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 10:34 a.m. Published Nov 23, 2020, 8:56 p.m.
Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is set to become the next head of the U.S. Treasury Department.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
President-elect Joe Biden intends to nominate the longtime economist to succeed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin when Biden takes office next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Any nominee would have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Yellen was seen as one of three frontrunners to get the nod, the Washington Post said, along with Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard and former Fed Vice Chair Roger Ferguson. Yellen ran the U.S. central bank between 2014 and 2018, during a period of relatively low inflation.
While she’s said in the past that she’s not a huge fan of bitcoin, Yellen is on record as saying she believes the U.S. financial regulators should allow blockchain and cryptocurrency projects to develop, saying in 2015 the Fed and other regulators might have “limited authority” over digital currency systems.
Two years later, she said blockchain is an important “new technology that could have implications for the way in which transactions are handled throughout the financial system.” Still, she’s been less interested in bitcoin itself, saying in 2018 that few transactions might be conducted using bitcoin and a majority of those might be illegal, in her view.
She’s also known within the crypto community for a 2017 hearing in which Christian Langalis wrote “buy bitcoin” on a legal pad and flashed it at a camera while she was testifying.
As Treasury Secretary, Yellen could shape how some of the financial regulators approach crypto. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are all bureaus within the Treasury Department’s purview.
It’s unclear how Yellen might view the crypto space at present.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Japan’s Higher Rates Puts Bitcoin in the Crosshairs of a Yen Carry Unwind
A stronger yen typically coincides with de-risking across macro portfolios, and that dynamic could tighten liquidity conditions that recently helped bitcoin rebound from November’s lows.
What to know:
- The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates to 0.75% at its December meeting, the highest since 1995, affecting global markets including cryptocurrencies.
- A stronger yen could lead to de-risking in macro portfolios, impacting liquidity conditions that have supported bitcoin's recent recovery.
- Governor Kazuo Ueda indicated a high probability of a rate hike, with officials prepared for further tightening if their economic outlook supports it.
Top Stories
