U.S. senators questioning President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, did not spend a lot time on cryptocurrency points in his nomination hearing on Thursday. However he had an opportunity to register sturdy opposition to a U.S. central financial institution digital forex (CBDC) and to notice that he favors a contemporary outlook on crypto.

The billionaire hedge fund supervisor advised the Senate Finance Committee, which is ready to think about affirmation of his nomination, that the Federal Reserve shouldn’t difficulty a digital greenback — a controversial concept that’s extensively seen by the crypto trade as a governmental incursion on its turf.

“I see no cause for the U.S. to have a central financial institution digital forex,” he mentioned. “In my thoughts, a central financial institution digital forex is for nations who don’t have any different funding options.”

Dozens of nations world wide, notably China, have launched or piloted CBDCs. However Bessent they’ve usually pursued them out “out of necessity,” and that the U.S. has no want.

Learn Extra: U.S. Fed Chair Powell Says ‘Nowhere Near’ Pursuing CBDC, Won’t Spy on Americans

At one other level in Thursday’s listening to, he was requested concerning the division’s financial-crimes arm, and within the context of terrorist financing, he mentioned, “I imagine we now have to have a 2025 method to … digital currencies.”

The sentiment was immediately embraced by the crypto-backed Ceder Innovation Basis in a social-media submit, saying, “Too many politicians have been working with a twentieth century outlook which not solely hurts digital innovators, but additionally international safety.”

Bessent, who made his fortune in hedge funds, shed hundreds of thousands of dollars in a bitcoin exchange-traded fund funding after accepting Trump’s nomination, demonstrating he is had skin-in-the-game to again up his pro-crypto rhetoric.

“Crypto is about freedom and the crypto financial system is right here to remain,” he mentioned in an interview with Fox Enterprise in July.

Learn Extra: Trump Picks Pro-Crypto Hedge Fund Manager Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary