Forward Guidance Former Fed Official & Stablecoin Expert On The Future Of Money | Robert Bench
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Jun 11, 2025 
Robert Bench, a former Fed official, USDC co-creator, and founder of Radius, shares his insights on the future of digital money. He explores the controversial path of CBDCs and the rise of stablecoins, emphasizing the urgency for the U.S. to innovate before losing ground to China. Bench discusses how stablecoins are revolutionizing financial transactions and critiques traditional banking methods. He also unveils Radius's plans to disrupt existing payment infrastructures, revolutionizing the way we think about online transactions.
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Robert Bench's Circle Journey
- Robert Bench shared his journey at Circle, helping develop USDC as a regulatory-compliant stablecoin.
- He explained stablecoins' evolution from wire replacement to enabling programmable DeFi and remittance solutions.
Leading Project Hamilton at Fed
- Robert Bench described leading Project Hamilton at the Federal Reserve exploring the technical feasibility of a digital dollar.
- The team built scalable transaction systems and published the code open-source, gaining excitement internally and externally.
CBDC Politics and Banking Fear
- CBDCs became politically radioactive due to fears of disintermediating small community banks.
- This fear is bipartisan, with both Republicans and Democrats united in protecting community banks despite unclear policy reasons.