During Jerome Powell’s Jan. 11 United States Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Patrick Toomey posed a question to the incumbent-and-future Federal Reserve chief: “If Congress were to authorize and the Fed were to pursue a central bank digital dollar, is there anything about that that ought to preclude a well-regulated privately-issued stablecoin from co-existing with a central bank digital dollar?”

“No. Not at all,” the central banker answered — a response that surely brought some relief to the crypto community. At least the Fed wasn’t seeking to ban stablecoins. This bullet was apparently dodged.