[mtnGoat]

Spitballing here… it could have been a test to see how easy they could get a digital currency into common use. The idea of a digital currency offers the Fed a lot of advantages… no money laundering, traceability, etc. it could actually advance them if well executed, not threaten them.

[coffeebeqn]

Does the fed employ a lot of cryptographers? I feel like people expect the U.S. gov to be omnipotent when the last 20 years have been just fumble after another

[wsanf]

While not omnipotent, the NSA does hire a huge amount of mathematicians and has a budget in the tens of billions. Most of what they do is also behind (extremely) closed doors.

[DinaCoder99]

Seems like a very poor fit for the Fed's needs outside of a honeypot for people actually trying to launder money.