What to expect from Federal Reserve’s Bitcoin and crypto payments conference?

The Federal Reserve will host a conference on Oct. 21, covering topics like stablecoins, AI, crypto payments, and many more. Here’s what to expect from the talks and who will be there.

The Fed is set to host a conference on Oct. 21 that is expected to make waves in the U.S crypto space. Dubbed the “Payments Innovation Conference,” the event will bring together several leading experts from the decentralized finance and crypto sector to engage with the central bank on a number of topics.

The conference itself is meant to encourage open dialogue between Fed officials and crypto industry leaders on the ever-changing financial landscape. It will also give central bank leaders an opportunity to widen their perspective on the many different emerging types of payment options provided by the crypto space.

“The Federal Reserve welcomes the opportunity to consider a broad range of perspectives on how to further innovate and improve the payment system,” said the agency in a statement.

The event marks one of the first times the Federal Reserve is explicitly convening a conference centered around crypto and digital assets. The conference is set to take place in Washington D.C, with opening remarks delivered by Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller.

According to the Fed’s official website, the conference will feature a series of round-table discussions with panelists from both the banking and crypto industries. The event will be livestreamed on the Fed’s YouTube channel and on the official site federalreserve.gov.

For the crypto market, this kind of event could boost investor confidence in the sector, considering how closely linked the crypto market performance is with Fed decisions. Statements made or signals given at the conference could shift expectations around regulation, institutional participation, or infrastructure rollout.

What’s on the Federal Reserve’s agenda for crypto?

The first discussion will commence at 9.20 AM local time, with the theme of “Bridging traditional finance with the digital asset ecosystem.”

The talk will be moderated by Chief Legal Officer at Jito Labs, Rebecca Rettig, and feature a number of crypto figures, including Chainlink CEO and Co-Founder Sergey Nazarov, Lead Bank CEO Jackie Reses, Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov, and Global Head of Treasury Services & Depositary Receipts at BNY, Jennifer Barker.

The second panel discussion will focus on stablecoins, specifically their use cases and business models. With Multicoin Capital’s Co-Founder Kyle Samani as moderator, the roundtable will feature Circle’s (USDC) President Heath Tarbert, Dolar App CEO Fernando Terres, Fifth Third Bank CEO Tim Spence, and Paxos Co-Founder and CEO Charles Cascarilla.

The third roundtable will center around the role of AI in payments and is moderated by Matt Marcus from Modern Treasury. A number of major leaders from crypto and decentralized finance will take part in the roundtable, including Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas, Head of AI at Stripe Emily Sands, and Managing Director, Web3 and Digital Assets at Google Cloud James Tromans.

For the last roundtable discussion, the panelists will talk about Tokenized Products. Moderated by Co-Head of Ventures at Brevan Howard, Colleen Sullivan, the final debate at the conference will feature Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, Founder and CEO of DRW Trading Group, Don Wilson, BlackRock COO, Rob Goldstein, and JPM Kinexys Co-Head, Kara Kennedy.

The conference will end with closing remarks from Governor Christopher J. Waller.