Which he struck a very humble but sort of defensive tone in saying that libra is not intended to be an investment vehicle. Its intended to be a payment vehicle that the crypt okurancy will not be used for monetary policy, and sort of defending this as a way for facebook to provide Economic Opportunity to its users. But of course, he is going to be facing a very hostile environment when he testifies tomorrow, and certainly well see if that same tone is echoed by the treasury secretary when he speaks in just a few minutes. This is most notable because this comes just days after President Trump tweeted specifically about libra as well as cryptocurrencies, that could be construed, Steven Mnuchin is approaching the podium lets go to him right now. Recently, as you know, theres been a great deal of interest about Digital Assets, including cryptocurrency such as bitcoin and libra. There are many regulatory and supervisory questions regarding libra, virtual assets, and virch wal currencies but i will focus primarily on the serious concerns the treasury has regarding the growing misuse of Virtual Currencies by money launderers, terrorist financiers and other bad players. This week representatives of Facebooks Calibra will go to capitol hill to discuss their proposal for a crippo currency at the Treasury Department, across the u. S. Government, and with the International Financial community, theres been a great deal of activity recently related to the regulation and the treatment of Digital Assets and cryptocurrencies i would like to give some brief explanatory remarks about what we have been doing on this front since theres lots of interest and then i will open it up to questions. Last month, the Libra Association, a consortium of 28 businesses including a facebook subsidiary announced its developing a cryptocurrency called the libra the Treasury Department has expressed very serious concerns that libra could be misused by money launderers and terrorists financiers cryptocurrency such as bit coin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of Illicit Activity like cyber crime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware, illicit drugs, human trafficking. Many players have attempted to use cryptocurrencies to fund their malign 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 AssetService Providers to operate in the shadow s and will not tolerate the use of the cryptocurrencies in support of illicit activities treasury has been very clear to facebook, bitcoin users, and other providers of Digital Financial services that they must implement the same antimoney laundering and countering finances of terrorism known as amlcft safe guards of Financial Institutions money transmitters of cryptocurrency must comply with the relevant banksecrecy act obligations and register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network known as fincen many people are not familiar with fin sen its a bureau of the u. S. Department of treasury fin sens mission is to safe guard the Financial System from illicit 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, have supervisory and enforcement regulation over banks. The rules governing money Service Providers apply to physical and electronic transactions alike as Money Service businesses, cryptocurrency money transmitters are subject to compliance examinations just like every other u. S. Bank to be clear, fincen will hold any agency that works with any 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 th fed, occ, cftc, cfpb, 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 the u. S. Financial system is protected from fraud given the International Nature of cryptocurrencies, we are also going to Great Lengths to insure 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 this space. This was a major step towards harmonizing International Regulations concerning cryptocurrencies we have 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 that being said, with respect to Facebooks Libra and other developments in cryptocurrencies, our overriding goal is to maintain the integrity of our Financial System and protect it from ab e 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 the first is jay powell of the fed said last week that fsoc would be meeting in the future to discuss Facebooks Libra product specifically has that happened yet. Secondly, you talked about facebook putting this out. If facebook is able to resolve all your concerns about aml and other issues, do you want facebook to be in the business of issuing cryptocurrency. Let me make the first comment, which is we, i say we, either at the principles level or at the deputies level, we had multiple meetings across the regulators with representatives of facebook and expressed our concerns we have also had multiple meetings of the fsoc working group. I think you know jay powell and i meet weekly and we 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 a Payment System, you know, correctly with proper aml, thats fine they have a lot of work to do to convince us to get to that place. Can you address the problems of raising the debt ceiling . Why dont i do this im sure theres a lot of interest in that as well but why dont i take a bunch of cryptocurrency questions, and well come back to you on that ill give you that, but you can ask a cryptocurrency question or ill come back to you. Ill wait for you. Facebook 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 i said, most people havent heard on finsen, so one of the reasons i wanted to explain this is whether theyre banks or nonbanks, theyre under the same Regulatory Environment for finsen, and well hold them accountable. Theyre going to have to convince us of very high standards before they have access to the u. S. Financial system mr. Secretary, the social media summit last week, the president essentially accused the social media giants of animus against conservatives can you assure the markets and everyone watching that whatever actions this government will take is not a result of the president s view that these social media giants are biased against him . Again, i can what i will tell you is that the president does have concerns, as it relates to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and those are legitimate concerns that we have been working on for a long period of time but no, were not going to target any one entities. Everybody is playing by the same rules. Again, whether you walk into a Money Service provider or whether you walk into a bank or you do it digitally, you have to adhere to the same rules considering that bitcoin, what do you tell americans who want to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies well, i can 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 youknow, our number one issue is that one, we dont want bad actors using crypto currencies thats our number one issue. I think to a large extent, these cryptocurrencies have been dominated by illicit 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 regulators theres proper dish closure. Youre uncomfortable with facebook launching the cryptocurrency i didnt say i was comfortable with them launching a currency if they launched it in an appropriate and safe way im not comfortable today let me just be careful, as i said, they and others have a lot of work to do before they get us comfortable. Do you have a sense of a timeline there is facebook being candid with the administration about how many years i think theyre being very candid with the administration and where they are im not going to publicly speculate how long i think it will take for us to get to a point where were comfortable with it, and part of it, theres been a lot of Public Interest in this thats why i wanted to get the public the 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 Illicit Activity well be shutting down forpeople using cryptocurrencies for bad purposes secretary, can you give a sense about how those discussions are going with your counterparts from other g20 countries on this particular area i would say theres enormous agreement on this, as i said i was in orlando, i think it was two weeks ago, the u. S. Just finished the presidency, if i gave the keynote address there that was adopted that is the largest organization, much bigger than the g20, and its 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, you said you would take questions on a number of subjects so ill ask one. I said i am first going to finish the cryptocurrencies. Let me finish. Well come back to you so you said that treasury is concerned about bad actors using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Which has become very popular among White Nationalist groups what sort of actions has treasury taken to stop these bad actors from using these decentralized cryptocurrencies and then i have a follow up. As it relates to any specific group, im not going to comment on any specific group. What i will tell you is that finsen has multiple investigations going on. There have been Enforcement Actions that 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 may i ask a followup well try to get everyone a question what specifically language wise are you looking out of the g7 finance ministers meeting and are you kftd youll get a statement. I would say, again, my understanding is that there will be a chairmans report, there wont necessarily be a communique in general, but i live 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 we have a lot of interest in the digital tax. Were focusing on the International Tax issue, but this will be high on our discussion issue mr. Secretary, back in march, sanctions were imposed on the venezuela cryptocurrency, and our understanding is the Venezuelan Regime is still trying to keep it afloat can you give us an update on the resource you have gotten from the restrictions and whether you have knowledge that the Venezuelan Regiment is im not aware of anyone who is really using that or its taken off or had any success whatsoever so the restrictions worked . Absolutely. Mr. Secretary, arent you afraid of painting everybody with the same brush . You have some of the crypto who have been going to the cftc, going to the imf and lagarde and the ecb and every regulator and getting it done, and libra comes up youre still putting everybody in the same broad brush. I dont think were doing that at all. 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 going on. So thats the purpose. Let me know when youre ready. Okay. Any more crypto before we move on okay i wonder if you could be specific as to the illicit actions that youre referring to can you give us some examples so the American People can know if theyre interested in getting into cryptocurrency, what things to avoid again, if youre dealing with a legitimate entity in the u. S. , those legitimate entities that are attached to crypto are indeed subject to familiar 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 illicit activities, were going to put the full effort of the u. S. Treasury and the regulators on to that do the new regulations favor traditional banks, maybe in the same way no, this is intended to be a level playing field. Whether youre moneygram or 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 dollars very effectively. And you know, well continue to support those activities we want technology to evolve yes, do you believe that 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 on whether its high or low again, im here to talk about the Regulatory Environment and warn people against illicit use. Hi, secretary as a member of the cabinet, the president today talked pretty extensively about his tweets about the four congresswomen do you find the president s tweets racist and what do you make of White Nationalists praising the tweets. I dont find it racist. The president went on and clarified his comments he speaks for himself on that and he was very clear. Again, were focused on cryptocurrencies and then ill do debt ceiling. You think theyre not racist . Mr. Secretary, why did you push back the 20 redesign with Harriet Tubman was it to help the president save face . He suggested that was done out of pure political correctness, suggesting she should be on a less popular bill. Ill take it were not 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 interest in that again, theres a lot of misinformation okay, on this issue. And i have 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 if you look at the 100 bill and what went into the 100 bill, that was over a tenyear process. What people dont understand is when it comes to counterfeiting, and again, protecting the currency is my responsibility. There are multiple ways we protect the currency some of these are physic