Richmond Fed appoints bitcoin advocate Sunayna Tuteja as chief innovation officer

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond has appointed Sunayna Tuteja, TD Ameritrade’s former head of digital assets and distributed ledger technology, as its chief innovation officer.

Why should we care?
The appointment of Tuteja, a self-described “crypto nerd,” suggests the Fed is watching the evolution of digital assets closely. Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month said stablecoins – or cryptocurrencies backed by fiat currencies – are a “high-level focus” for the central bank. While at TD Ameritrade, Tuteja, a longtime supporter of bitcoin and crypto, oversaw the brokerage’s warming to digital assets, and in 2018, it made an investment in erisX, a cryptocurrency exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “Driven by Covid, we as consumers really are now in the era of digitization of everything, consumers and investors are saying well digitization should extend to our investments,” she said in a recent interview. The Richmond Fed’s announcement of Tuteja’s role leaves considerable room for interpretation, saying she will lead efforts to “identify, research, enable, and advocate for new technologies.” While the Fed may be showing some openness to crypto, others in government are taking a guarded approach. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed concern about bitcoin this week, suggesting the digital currency is an “extremely inefficient” way to conduct monetary transactions. Tuteja’s appointment comes a week after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation appointed Sultan Meghji, co-founder and former CEO of fintech Neocova, as its first chief innovation officer.