Crypto-friendly Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to temporarily lead CFPB

Quick Take
- President Donald Trump tapped Bessent to lead the CFPB temporarily, according to a statement from the agency.
- The CFPB has worked on rules to rein in crypto, including an “interpretive rule” last month to protect consumers against fraud in crypto transactions.


Recently confirmed U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be taking on a second role as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a statement released on Monday.
President Donald Trump tapped Bessent to lead the CFPB temporarily, according to a statement from the agency. The CFPB is tasked with overseeing consumer financial markets and has proposed a few rules that touch on crypto over the years.
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth,” Bessent said in the statement.
Trump reportedly fired former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra over the weekend. The agency's future is a bit on edge since it reportedly caught the ire of the Trump Administration. For instance, Elon Musk, the billionaire co-lead of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (named in an apparent nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, DOGE), said he would "delete CFPB," in a post on X in November.
The CFPB, originally proposed in 2007 by crypto critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has worked on rules to rein in crypto, including an "interpretive rule" last month to protect consumers against fraud in crypto transactions. It looks into how the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and other regulations would apply to incoming "digital payment mechanisms" like stablecoins. That Act, passed in 1978, is a federal law that aims to protect consumers engaging in electronic fund transfers, such as ATMs back in the day.
Bessent was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to lead the U.S. Treasury Department last month. A billionaire hedge fund manager, Bessent has taken a positive view of crypto and recently spoke against issuing a central bank digital currency — something some Republicans have long been opposed to. Bessent will also be a member of a new "President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets," as part of an executive order issued by Trump on Jan. 23.
House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) criticized former Director Chopra’s leadership and accused him of “regulatory overreach,” in a statement on Monday.
"I look forward to working with Acting Director and Treasury Secretary Bessent to finally rein in this unaccountable agency by putting the CFPB under the appropriations process, making it a bipartisan commission, and providing appropriate statutory guardrails," Hill said.
There is no specific language in the U.S. Constitution that blocks someone from serving in a leadership role for two executive branch agencies or departments, but it is “generally frowned upon as bad practice” because it can cause conflicts of interest or be not very practical for one person to handle two demanding positions, said John Aughenbaugh, associate political sciences professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, in an email to The Block.
“It should be noted that while the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the practice, there are some authorizing statutes that do forbid the practice (particularly with independent regulator commissions),” Aughenbaugh added.
The Trump administration could be trying to “consolidate and mitigate the CFPB”s impact,” he said.
“The CFPB has been a bane of the Republican and business communities existences since it was created in 2011, and the Trump administration trying to cabin its influence is part of the GOP's effort to do what it cannot via legislation -- which is convince Congress to eradicate the Bureau (its majorities are just too narrow),” Aughenbaugh said.
Update: Feb. 3 . 5:00 p.m. UTC to include comment from Rep. Hill
Update: Feb. 3 . 7:15 p.m. UTC to include insight from John Aughenbaugh
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