US president Joe Biden plans to nominate a critic of cryptocurrencies and the existing banking system to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which is part of the Treasury Department, Bloomberg has reported citing its own sources.
Saule Omarova, a law professor at Cornell University who is a native of Kazakhstan and a graduate of Moscow State University, has previously said she wants to "end banking as we know it."
She has also noted that the rapid growth of cryptocurrencies "mainly benefits the existing non-functional system." Digital tokens threaten to destabilize the economy and are vulnerable to abuse by private companies to the detriment of government guarantees.
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Omarova believes the best option is to transfer consumer deposits to digital accounts at the Fed, which she described as part of a plan to "radically change the underlying architecture and dynamics of modern finance."
According to The New York Times, the US administration has been considering her nomination since August:
"Saule Omarova's scientific papers give insight into how she might approach a new position. In her research, she emphasizes that cryptocurrency transactions allow banks to conduct more business operations out of sight of the Fed and other regulators. As head of the department, Omarova may seek to strengthen oversight of such processes, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup."