Janet Yellen

Janet Yellen is an American economist and former senior U.S. financial policymaker whose tenure as Secretary of the Treasury from 2021 to 2025 shaped the federal government’s approach to digital assets, stablecoins, and crypto-related illicit finance. With prior roles including Chair of the Federal Reserve, Yellen brought a central-banking lens to crypto policy, emphasizing consumer protection, anti money laundering compliance, and financial stability. For the crypto sector, her influence is most visible in Treasury-led policy coordination after 2022, the evolution of U.S. sanctions and enforcement posture toward certain crypto services, and recurring calls for a clear regulatory framework for stablecoins and market structure.

Overview

Yellen’s relevance to the crypto ecosystem stems from the Treasury Department’s remit over financial stability coordination, sanctions policy, and financial crime enforcement through agencies such as the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). During her time in office, federal policy increasingly treated crypto as part of mainstream financial infrastructure, rather than a niche asset class, particularly as dollar-denominated stablecoins grew in use and crypto markets became more interconnected with traditional finance.

History and Background

Yellen was born in 1946 and built a career across academia and public institutions. She served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the late 1990s, later led the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and became Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve before serving as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. In January 2021, she was sworn in as the 78th Secretary of the Treasury, becoming the first person to have led the Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department. This background informed her policy emphasis on macroeconomic stability, systemic risk, and regulatory coordination.

Digital Assets Policy and Treasury’s Role

In 2022, the U.S. government launched a coordinated strategy for digital assets, with Treasury assigned a central role in producing policy analyses and recommendations across payments, financial stability, consumer protection, and illicit finance. Under Yellen, Treasury’s posture generally supported innovation in payments and financial infrastructure while arguing that rapid crypto adoption without guardrails could amplify fraud, market manipulation, and runs in instruments that resemble money market substitutes.

Yellen’s public messaging frequently highlighted that crypto risks were not limited to price volatility. She pointed to operational failures, cyber risk, and governance weaknesses as issues that could affect households and, in extreme scenarios, spill into the broader financial system. This framing aligned with rising attention to stablecoins and the growing role of dollar-linked tokens in crypto trading and on-chain settlement.

Stablecoins, Payments, and Financial Stability

Treasury under Yellen repeatedly urged Congress and regulators to clarify oversight for stablecoin issuers and intermediaries. Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC became integral to crypto market liquidity and cross-border transfers, increasing the policy importance of reserve quality, redemption rights, and operational resilience. Yellen’s Treasury supported a framework that would reduce the likelihood of destabilizing redemptions, improve transparency, and strengthen supervisory expectations for entities that function like payment firms or narrow banks.

Although the U.S. did not adopt a single “stablecoin law” during her tenure, the period saw more explicit linkage between stablecoin growth and financial stability monitoring. Treasury’s work intersected with interagency bodies that evaluate systemic risk and cybersecurity threats affecting both traditional finance and crypto-linked infrastructure.

Illicit Finance, Sanctions, and Compliance Expectations

Another defining theme of Yellen’s Treasury was the use of financial crime tools to address cybercrime, sanctions evasion, and money laundering flows that touch digital assets. Treasury agencies expanded attention to mixers, cross-chain obfuscation, and offshore service providers used to conceal the origin of funds. These efforts were part of a broader U.S. strategy to limit the ability of sanctioned actors to move value, including those tied to hacking and ransomware operations.

This approach created ongoing tension with parts of the crypto community, particularly around privacy tooling and the compliance responsibilities of centralized intermediaries. While Treasury’s stance was grounded in enforcement and national security priorities, critics argued that some actions risked overreach and could push activity into less transparent venues.

Notable Milestones

• 2021 to 2025: Served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, overseeing financial stability coordination, sanctions policy, and financial crime enforcement relevant to crypto markets.
• 2022: Treasury played a lead role in a government-wide digital assets policy effort, including reports focused on payments, financial stability, and illicit finance risks.
• 2022 to 2024: U.S. enforcement and sanctions posture increasingly addressed crypto services associated with obfuscation and high-risk transaction flows.
• Ongoing: Public advocacy for clearer rules covering stablecoins and crypto market structure, with emphasis on consumer protection and systemic risk mitigation.

Risks and Considerations

Yellen’s legacy in crypto policy is closely tied to a compliance-first approach that prioritized fraud reduction, AML enforcement, and systemic safeguards. For market participants, this period underscored several realities: regulatory expectations can tighten quickly during market stress, sanctions risk can extend to certain service categories, and stablecoins are treated as payment-adjacent instruments that attract bank-like scrutiny. These themes remain relevant for firms building around Bitcoin, Ethereum, and dollar-linked tokens, particularly where products intersect with custody, payments, or cross-border value transfer.

• U.S. Department of the Treasury former Secretary of the Treasury