Summary
- Former CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad said the US government is still reviewing the possible introduction of a CBDC.
- Massad said the US is participating in the BIS-led Project Agora while reviewing infrastructure for tokenized deposits and payments based on central bank money.
- Mark Gould, the Fed's chief payments executive, said a CBDC is not currently under the Fed's remit, but a government-backed digital dollar could fall within its jurisdiction if introduced.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Timothy Massad said the US government is still reviewing the possible introduction of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
In an interview with CoinDesk at the Digital Money Summit 2026 in London on May 19, Massad said the US has publicly taken a hostile stance toward CBDCs while continuing to examine related infrastructure. President Donald Trump strongly opposed a CBDC before taking office, but adoption is unavoidable given global market dynamics, he said.
Massad pointed to Project Agora, an initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS. The project is a payments experiment based on tokenized deposits and central bank money involving the central banks of seven major economies, including the US. The US is participating in Project Agora, he said, adding that a central bank governor's decision not to publicly discuss retail or wholesale CBDCs does not mean related options are not under review.
The Federal Reserve pushed back on that characterization. Mark Gould, the Fed's chief payments executive, said at the event that a CBDC is not currently within the central bank's remit. He added that a government-backed digital dollar could fall under the Fed's jurisdiction if it were introduced.
Trump said during the 2024 presidential campaign that he would ban the issuance of a CBDC. A bill to prohibit the Fed from issuing a CBDC also cleared the US Senate in March.
