Should Federal Reserve buy Bitcoin? 🤔; What Amazon & Visa dispute indicate about the future of payments 💳; New $600M crypto-focused fund from top VC firm 💸

Good Morning FinTech, February 21

Good morning Everyone,

And happy Monday! I hope you had some time to recharge your batteries over the weekend🔋 Even if you’re still struggling a bit, I’m about to give you a boost because these 3 FinTech stories are definitely electrifying ⚡️ Let’s jump straight into them:

Should Federal Reserve buy Bitcoin? 🤔

Should the FED follow the hype? 🤔 One US Senator thinks it should. And it’s surprise surprise Cynthia Lummis.

More on this 👉 Cynthia Lummis, US Senator from the Wyoming state, has suggested that the Federal Reserve should buy and hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet, The Block reported.

Speaking on a panel hosted by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation on Thursday, Lummis said, "I think it's a great idea to be honest" for the Fed to buy bitcoin as it holds over $40 billion in foreign currency reserves. Lummis was replying to a question by the panel moderator Matt Sandgren, executive director of the Hatch Foundation, who hosted the panel on the future of the crypto economy.

"Once there is a statutory and regulatory framework, that will make a lot of sense," said Lummis. "The fact that [bitcoin] is completely decentralized, is going to make it over time more ubiquitous, and I think it's going to be something that the Fed should hold on its balance sheet."

While this sounds really nice for all the Bitcoin maximalists, what does it really mean? Let’s put it into perspective: