It was not the first time Kashkari has questioned the value of cryptocurrencies. The longtime cryptocurrency critic compared the assets to Beanie Babies as recently as November, telling CNN they had no clear fundamentals beyond bypassing banking regulations.
"When it comes to anything about crypto or stablecoins, ask the most basic questions and don’t settle for word salad nonsense answers," he said. "Make them really explain how this thing actually works. And whenever I do that, there’s just nothing there."
Kashkari said stablecoins were not useful in the U.S. when pressed by Ryan about their potential for cross-border payments. Kashkari also said that in cross-border scenarios, their benefits are lost when recipients have to convert to their native currencies to use the money in the real world.
Stablecoins do not do anything Venmo and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL ) do not already do, Kashkari said. He added that when he asked proponents about the usefulness of stablecoins, all he heard was "a buzzword salad answer, blah blah blah, tokenized deposits, blah blah blah. Like, what does it actually do for your consumer?"
Kashkari also questioned the usefulness of stablecoins when asked by Ryan about stablecoins and payment innovations.
"Crypto’s been around for more than a decade and it’s utterly useless," he said. "AI has not been around very long and people are using it every day. And so this is demonstrating to me that this thing is real and it has real long-term potential for the U.S. economy as opposed to crypto."
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Kashkari asked the crowd to raise their hands if they had used popular AI tools like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI ‘s ChatGPT and several hands went up. However, when he said, "raise your hand if you’ve bought or sold something with Bitcoin," no one appeared to raise their hand.
Kashkari cast doubt on the value of cryptocurrencies when asked about AI by Old National Bancorp (NASDAQ: ONB ) CEO Jim Ryan III during a Q&A at the Midwest Economic Outlook Summit on Feb. 19.
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Kashkari’s remarks last week come as many others are also questioning the value proposition of cryptocurrencies, which have underperformed stocks and gold in recent months.
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Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) Strategist Marion Laboure recently dismissed the narrative that Bitcoin is digital gold, citing its price performance.
"If I look at the 2025 performance, it's not a digital gold, or it's no longer a digital gold," she told Yahoo Finance earlier this month. "Gold outperformed by 65% in 2025, Bitcoin declined by 6.5%, so we are clearly seeing this divergence."
Laboure added that Bitcoin was not a means of payment or currency, saying, "It’s unlikely to replace gold or fiat." The asset is transitioning from being purely speculative to having a real use case, she said.
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This article 'Raise Your Hand If You've Bought Or Sold Something With Bitcoin': Fed Official Reportedly Slams Crypto And Stablecoins As 'Utterly Useless' originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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