Former CFTC chair Timothy Massad says a US CBDC ban cannot stop behind-the-scenes infrastructure work.
Summary
- Timothy Massad told a London summit on May 19 that global tokenization trends make a US digital dollar ultimately inevitable.
- Massad pointed to Project Agora, a BIS initiative involving seven central banks, as evidence of quiet US participation in CBDC infrastructure.
- The Federal Reserve’s chief payments executive said a digital dollar is not currently under the Fed’s remit, but acknowledged it would be if introduced.
Former CFTC chair Timothy Massad told London’s Digital Money Summit on May 19 that a US digital dollar is ultimately inevitable. He said the CBDC ban is politically sensitive but does not reflect activity behind closed doors.
“We don’t have a central bank president who is going to get out there and speak about wholesale or retail CBDC, but that does not mean that we are not looking at how to create one,” Massad said.
Why Massad says the CBDC ban is a political facade
Mark Gould, the Federal Reserve’s chief payments executive, said a digital dollar is not currently within the Fed’s remit. Gould acknowledged it would be the central bank’s responsibility if one were ever introduced.
Massad pointed to Project Agora as evidence of continued US engagement. The BIS initiative involves the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and six other central banks, testing tokenized deposits alongside wholesale central bank money on a programmable platform.
House Republicans pushed on May 19 to make the CBDC ban permanent inside a major housing bill. Trump originally signed an executive order in early 2025 prohibiting federal agencies from developing a CBDC.
What the US risks by staying out
Massad argued that global tokenization activity is forcing the US to build equivalent digital settlement infrastructure. His concern is that stepping back from international experiments could cost the US influence over global digital payment standards.
His position aligns with analysis crypto.news has tracked questioning whether private stablecoins can preserve dollar dominance. Massad served as CFTC chair from 2014 to 2017 and has long pushed for faster US action on digital currency infrastructure.
