Making policy for all to see. A lot has changed but today that is more relevant than ever. On television and online, cspan is your relevant provider. Treasury secretary, steve manuchy held a conference at the white house on how they will use crypt to currencies and that facebooks currencies could be used by Money Laundering. And asked about the freshman tweets by freshman lawmakers, he said he didnt find the tweets racist. This is about a half hour. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. As you know there have been a great deal of interest about crypt to assets such as bitcoin and libra. There are many questions regarding libra, Virtual Assets and virtual currencies. I will focus primarily on the concerns the treasury has about growing misuse of cryptocurrencies by money launderers, and financiers and other bad players. Going to capital hill, going to congress about the cryptocurrency, libra. In the International Community there has been a great deal of activity recently related to the regulation and digital aspects of cryptocurrencies. Id like to give brief editorial remarks about what weve been doing on this front, since theres lots of interests and then open it up to questions. Last month, the libra association, consortium of 28 businesses including a facebook subsidiary is making libra. The u. S. Treasury is concerned about it being misused by money launderists and terrorists and financers. Cryptocurrency such as bitcoin have been exploited to export billions of dollars of elicit activity like cyber crime, extortion, ransomware, elicit drugs, human trafficking. Many players have attempted to use cryptocurrencies to fund their mall lined behavior. This is indeed a National Security issue. The United States has been at the forefront of regulating entities that provide cryptocurrency. We will not allow Digital AccessService Providers to operate in the shadows and will not tolerate the use of the cryptocurrencies in support of elicit activities. Treasury has been very classified information to facebook, bitcoin users and other providers of Digital Financial services, that they must implement the same antiMoney Laundering, encountering financing of terrorism known as amlcft safeguards of traditional financial institutions. Money transmitters of crypt to currency must comply with the relevant Bank Secrecy Act obligations known as bsa and register with the financial crimes enforcement network. U. S department of treasury. Finsens mission is to safeguard the Financial System from elicit use, combat Money Laundering and promote National Security through the dissemination of financial intelligence. Last year, alone, it collected over 20 million bsa reports and has collected over 300 million in the last 11 years. Finsen implements the Bank Secrecy Acts regulation and has federal regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement, authority over Money Service businesses and banks. The rules governing money Service Providers apply to physical and electronic transactions alike. As Money Service businesses, cryptocurrency money transm transmitters are subject to compliance examinations just like every other u. S. Bank. To be clear, finsen will hold any entity that transaction bitcoin, libra, or any other cryptocurrency to its highest standards. I also recently established the Financial StabilityOversight Councils working group on digital assets. This fsoc group enables u. S. Financial regulators such as finsen, the fed, occ, cftc, cfpb, s. E. C. , and other Key Stakeholders to Work Together to combat risks posed by cryptocurrencies. As the president has said, bitcoin is highly volatile and based on thin air. We are concerned about the speculative nature of bitcoin and will make sure that the u. S. Financial system is protected from fraud. Given the International Nature of cryptocurrencies, we are also going to Great Lengths to ensure that effective regulation does not stop here at the u. S. Border. Last month, led by the United States, the Financial Action task force known as fatf, the global standard setter for amlcft, adopted comprehensive measures on how countries must regulate and supervise activities and providers in the space. This was a major step toward harmonizing International Regulations concerning cryptocurrencies. Weve also had extensive work at the g20, and i will be addressing this again this week at the g7 finance ministers in france. To be clear, the u. S. Welcomes responsible innovation including new technologies that may improve the efficiency of the Financial System and expand access to financial services. That being said, with respect to Facebooks Libra and other develops in cryptocurrencies, our overriding goal is to maintain the integrity of our Financial System and protect it from abuse. Treasury takes very seriously the role of the u. S. Dollar as the worlds reserve currency and will continue our efforts to protect our country and secure the u. S. And global Financial Systems. With that, i know theres been a lot of interest in this subject and perhaps a few others so ill take a few questions. In the back. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Two questions for you, if you dont mind. First one is jay powell of the fed said last week that fsoc would be meeting in the future to discuss Facebooks Libra products, specifically. Has that happened yet . Then secondly, you talked about facebook putting this product out. If facebook is able to ultimately resolve all your concerns about aml and other issues, do you want facebook to be in the business of issuing cryptocurrencies . So let me make the first comment which is we i sigh we, either at the principals level or deputy level, weve had multiple meetings across the regulators are representatives of face boork abook and express concerns. We also have multiple meetings of the fsoc working group. I think you know jay powell and i meet weekly and talked about this extensively. There are these discussions going on. They will continue to go on. Again, to the extent that facebook can do this correctly and can have payment system, you know, correctly with proper aml, thats fine. They got a lot of work to do to convince us to get to that place. Can you address the problems of raising the debt ceiling . With why dont i do this . Im sure theres a lot of interest in that as welsh b wely dont i take a lot of cryptocurrency questions we ill come back to that. You can ask a cryptocurrency question or ill come back to you. Ill wait for you. What are your concerns facebooks had privacy issues in the past. How does that play into your concern, and what is your level of concern with facebook having libra . Well, again, i would just say we obviously have concerns with the privacy issues. Theres been items in the press about potential settlements. Im not going to comment on that. But obviously, the regulators and one of the regulators, as ive said, most people havent heard of finsen, so one of the reasons i wanted to explain this is whether theyre banks or whether theyre nonbanks, theyre under the same Regulatory Environment for finsen and we will hold them accountable and theyre going to have to convince us of very high standards before they have access to the u. S. Financial system. Mr. Secretary, at the social media summit last week the president essentially accused the social media giants of an animus. Can you ensure the markets, whatever is watching, is that the result of the president s view that these social media giants are biased against him. Again, what i will tell you is the president does have concerns as it relates to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and no those are legitimate concerns that weve been working on for a long period of time. No, were not going to target any one entity. Everybody is playing by the same rules. Again, whether you walk into a Money Service provider or whether you walk into a bank or do it dicgitally, youre going o have to adhere to the same rules. Mr. Secretary, considering that bitcoin what do you tell americans who want to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies . Well, one, i tell them to be careful, okay . They should be clear why theyre investing in them. Theres a lot of good things to invest in. Obviously, we know about. But, you know, our numberone issue is that, one, we dont want bad actors using cryptocurrencies. Thats our numberone issue. I think to a large extent, these cryptocurrencies have been dominated by elicit activities and speculation. Well make sure that the general public and investors understand what theyre investing in and whether its the s. E. C. Or other regula regulators, theres proper disclosures. Mr. Secretary, are you comfortable with facebook launching the currency no, i didnt say that. I didnt say i was comfortable with them launching a currency. If they launched it in the appropriate and in a safe way yeah, but im not comfortable today. So let me just be careful, as ive said, they and others have a lot of work to do before they get us comfortable. Do you have a sense of a time tloo line there . Is facebook being candid with the administration about how many years it would take them . I think theyre being candid with the administration and where they are. Im not going to publicly speculate how long it will take them to get to the point where were comfortable with it. They are a longw way away from again, par of it, theres been a lot of Public Interest in this. I wanted to give the public the assuran assurance. Before they or anyone else does this, that were going to make sure the Financial System is protected and as i said, theres a lot of elicit activity well be shutting down for people using cryptocurrencies for bad purposes. Mr. Secretary, can you give a sense of how the discussions are going with your counterparts from other g20 countries on this particular issue . Id say theres enormous agreement on this. I was in orlando, two weeks ago, the u. S. Just finished the presidency in fact, i gave the keynote address there. That is adopted. That is the largest organization, much bigger than the g20 and is kind of the Gold Standard of aml, and those rules were adapted and at the g20 and the g7, we have absolute general agreement that in the u. S. , if you deal with the u. S. Financial system, you have to adhere to the same rules and thats something that the rest of the g20 is very focused on. Mr. Secretary mr. Secretary, you said youd take questions on a number of subjects. So ill ask i said i was first no, im first going to finish the cryptocurrencies. Well well come back to you. Okay . Go ahead. Cryptocurrency. So you said that the treasury is concerned about bad actors using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin which has become very popular among White Nationalist groups. What sort of actions is treasury taking to stop these bad actors from using these decentralized cryptocurrencies . And i have a followup, sir. Im not, as it relates to any specific group, im not going to comment on inany specific group. What i would tell you, finsen has multiple investigations going on. There have been enforcement actions. There will be more enforcement actions. Were going to beef up our resources for regulatory oversight. This is something were absolutely focused on and on top of. Well, you havent answered the followup were trying to get everybody one question. What specifically language wise are you looking for out of the g7 finance ministers meeting on it and are you confident youll get a statement that has some teeth . Id say, again, my understanding is that, you know, there will a chairmans report, there wont necessarily be a communique in general, but i leave that to the french. I will say, we have working groups at the g7 and g20. This has been in the g20. Notifications. I think, you know, we got a lot of interest in the digital text. Were focusing on the International Tax issue. This would definitely be high on our discussion issue. Back in march, treasury imposed sanctions on the venezuela cryptocurrency. Our understanding is the Venezuelan Regime is still trying to keep it afloat. Can you give us an update on the restrictions and whether or not you have any knowledge that the venezuela regiment im not aware of anybody whos really using that or its taken off and had any success whatsoever. Are the restrictions warranted . Absolutely. Mr. Secretary, arent you afraid of painting everybody with the same brush . You know, you have some of the crypto been going to cftc, theyve been going with the imf and lagarde and the ecb and every regulator getting this done in the rules. The libra sort of comes up. Youre sort of putting everybody in the same painting the same brush i dont think were doing that at all. Matter of fact, as i said, one of the reasons why i wanted to speak about this is theres been lots of activity thats been going on for the last year on this. And, you know, whether its congress or other areas of the press, because of libra, its caught a lot of attention. And people werent aware of all the work thats been going on. So thats the purpose. I wonder if you could be specific as to the elicit actions that youre referring to. Can you give us some examples so the American People can know if theyre interested in getting into cryptocurrency . Things to avoid. Well, again, if youre dealing with a legitimate entity in the u. S. , those legitimate entities that are attached to crypto are, indeed, subject to the know your customer rules and aml. If youre looking to use bitcoin to go through those entities and go on the dark web and think youre not going to get caught, youre going to get caught. So this is a warning. If you want to use it for speculation, thats one thing. If you want to use it for elicit activities, were going to put the full effort of the u. S. Treasury and the regulators on to that. Sir do the new regulations favor traditional banks, maybe in the same no, this is intended to be a level playing field. Whether youre moneygram or youre a bank or youre an online or youre paypal, this is intended to be a level playing field. And, again, what we do encourage, and theres been a lot of financial innovation away from traditional banks for Electronic Payment Systems. Lots of people use Electronic Payment Systems in dollar s ver effectively. You know, well continue to support those activities. We want technology to evolve. Yes, do you believe the rise in bitcoin value was fueled by fraud . Have you seen evidence of that . Im not going to speculate. I have no idea why bitcoin trades where it is. Im not commenting that its higher or low. Again, im here to talk about the Regulatory Environment and warn people against elicit use. Hi, secretary. As a member of the cabinet, the president today talked extensively about his tweets about the what do you think about White Nationalists praising these tweets . Again, i dont find them racist. The president just went on and clarified his comment. I think he speaks for himself on that. He was very clear. Again, were focused on cryptocurrencies, then ill do some get ceiling stuff. Mr. Secretary, you think theyre not racist . Canvy a fo vv vi have a follow . Mr. Secretary, why did you the 20 bill with harriet tubman. The president suggested she should be on a less popular bill. Okay. Well, ill take it were now going to switch off of cryptocurrency to some other things. So im going to give you the benefit of that. Then well talk ill give you some brief debt ceiling. Im sure theres some interest in that. Again, theres a lot of misinformation. Okay . On in this issue. And ive received letters being accused of postponing this and everything else. So, again, this is a nonpolitical situation where the primary objective of changing the currency is to stop counterfeiting. And if you look at the 100 bill and what went into the 100 bill, that was over a 10year process. What people dont understand when it comes to counterfeiting, again, protecting the currency is my responsibility. There are multiple ways we protect the currency. Some of these are physical things that you can see. Like when you look at the 100 bill and you see the thread. There are security features that you cant see, okay . There are security features that are limited to the government being able to see. So we dont advertise what all the security features are. But these are very complex things that once theyre deve p developed then require different machinery to be made and a different manufacturing process. So the new currency is not going to come out for a long period of time. When people talked about the design, and, again, the design starts with the security features. Okay . There were some preliminary what i would call artwork, not design, and, again, even in the most optimistic scenario of me s staying through the president s second term, im not staying past the president s second term. This currency isnt going to come out. So this is not a political issue. And, again, were happy to back with harriet tubman. You say its not a political issue. With all the controversy swirling right now as it relates to race and things that happened before, is this an issue of race . No. And matter of fact, okay, were going to do more research on kind of whats been done at treasury in the past. At some point, we will be having to look at when we have the currency, and at that appropriate time, well addr