Crypto Can Bring Healthy Innovation to Payment Systems: Janet Yellen

During a recent interview with CNBC, former Fed Reserve chairperson and current Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen stated that crypto can be beneficial to a certain degree, even though she is skeptical of it.

"There are benefits from crypto"

When asked by CNBC host Andrew Sorkin whether her attitude toward digital currencies has changed from her previous negative stance, Yellen said that she remains a little skeptical about it.

However, the U.S. Treasury secretary also believes that crypto can bring certain benefits if used properly. In particular, Yellen admitted that innovation in the payment systems used by the U.S. can be a healthy thing.

"I have a little bit of skepticism," says @SecYellen on #crypto. "On the other hand there are benefits from crypto and we recognize innovation in the payment systems can be a healthy thing," pic.twitter.com/7N1SYxICwq

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) March 25, 2022

Number of BTC holders surpasses 40 million

On-chain data vendor IntoTheBlock has spread the word about a massive increase in the overall number of Bitcoin wallets.

Now, the flagship digital currency is held by more than a staggering 40 million addresses (40.21 million). That is a new all-time high for this metric.

The chart shared by the agency shows that after this metric dropped back in February, it then resumed growing. The fact of reaching this historic peak points to growing adoption of Bitcoin and an upsurge of interest in the leading digital currency, the tweet states.

40M+ Holders - For the first time the number of addresses holding #Bitcoin has surpassed 40 million

- After dropping in February, the number of addresses holding Bitcoin has continued to grow and set new highs
- This points to growing interest and adoption for Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/cdVFnvfjis

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) March 25, 2022

Bitcoin price action

BTC has been on the rise since March 22, when it showed growth by 4%, rising from $41,182 to the $42,824 price mark.

This uptick was followed by another rise by 4.81% by now. After soaring since yesterday, the king crypto is exchanging hands at $44,873 per coin on the Bitstamp exchange at the moment.

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Bitcoin as legal tender

In other news, the two countries have been mentioned in the context of the possibility of making Bitcoin a legal tender this week. Malaysia is eyeing BTC as an official means of exchange, as U.Today reported earlier.

However, Honduras, which was rumored to be doing likewise, has denied these rumors.

The only country that has so far officially adopted BTC remains El Salvador. This week, its president, Nayib Bukele, met with the CEO and a co-founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (commonly known simply as CZ), who has paid a visit to the country to discuss cooperation to help El Salvador issue Bitcoin bonds.

Last year, when the aforementioned country adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender, CZ supported this decision by praising it on Twitter.