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When Retail Banking Czar?

In the coming years, we’ll be hearing a lot from David Sachs, the new ‘AI and Crypto Czar’ in the US. In one move, it has elevated crypto into rarefied territory alongside the world’s cutting-edge technology of AI. And if AI doesn’t work out, the US can put all that new computing power into mining bitcoin, eh? While China has banned mining and trading of bitcoin, but favours a digital Yuan, the White House has come out against a digital dollar, but wants to make the US the global cryptocurrency capital. Now central banks are starting to take sides. Head of the Czech central bank Alex Michl told the FT this week he will propose the bank’s board that it should acquire bitcoin for up to five percent of its reserves. Michl acknowledged bitcoin’s ‘extreme volatility’ and limited record – as it’s only been around for 15 years – but pointed to the growing acceptance of the number one cryptocurrency among institutional investors such as Blackrock and other firms who have launched bitcoin exchange traded funds. As we noted last week, Donald Trump set up a working group to look at creating a digital asset reserve. “For the diversification of our assets, bitcoin seems good,” Michl said in an interview with the FT. “Those Trump guys can now kind of create some bubble for bitcoin, but I think the trend would be an increase without those guys as well, because it’s an alternative investment for more people.” He acknowledged his philosophy differed from other central bankers. German central bank head Joachim Nagel is still going with the Dutch tulip bubble as a comparison. The word czar, incidentally, is of Slavic origin, first used one thousand years ago in modern-day Bulgaria, as a local version of Caesar. All hail AI and crypto.

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