Fed official dismisses crypto's real-world utility

TLDR

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari has called crypto utterly useless, arguing it still lacks meaningful real-world use cases after more than a decade.

1. Kashkari attacked both crypto and stablecoins, saying they fail simple grocery store and remittance tests and comparing them unfavorably to AI and apps like Venmo.
2. His view is contested by growing payment, remittance and tokenization projects that use blockchains to move money and real-world assets more efficiently.
3. For crypto users, this highlights a narrative battle: regulators question consumer utility while institutions build infra, so clear, visible use cases matter more than slogans.

Deep Dive

1. What Kashkari Actually Said

Neel Kashkari told the 2026 Midwest Economic Outlook Summit that crypto has been around more than a decade and is utterly useless, while AI already shows daily value for consumers. He argued that stablecoin benefits are buzzword salad, asking what they enable that Venmo, PayPal or Zelle do not. In cross-border examples, such as sending money to family in the Philippines, he said recipients still must convert to local currency at a cost, so claims of instant, cheap remittances are overstated. He also doubted that countries would ever give up their own monetary policy for a global crypto-based system, keeping frictions in place.

2. How This Fits Real Crypto Utility

Kashkaris stance sits opposite industry claims that crypto is already modernizing finance. Coinbases Brian Armstrong has argued that tokenization and stablecoins can move assets on programmable rails, improving settlement and access to markets. Projects like tokenized real estate on the XRP Ledger in Dubai show regulators and institutions experimenting with on-chain ownership of property, with controlled secondary trading of tokenized units. Broader RWA tokenization on public chains has reached hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, covering things like treasuries and commodities, which is a very different story from no real-world use.

3. Why It Matters For Markets And What To Watch

Kashkari is one regional Fed president, not the whole central bank, but his skepticism matters for US policy mood and how quickly bank-connected crypto products scale. At the same time, other policymakers focus less on dismissing crypto and more on building regulatory frameworks, for example around stablecoins and tokenized securities, which could legitimize some of the use cases he doubts. For crypto users and builders, the practical edge is likely to go to applications that visibly solve problems he raises, such as cheaper, compliant remittances or tokenization that cuts settlement friction for real assets.

Conclusion

Kashkaris comments underline a gap between how many in crypto see their own progress and how at least some central bankers judge real-world utility. The more on-chain systems can prove concrete savings or new capabilities in payments, remittances and asset markets, the harder it becomes to sustain the utterly useless narrative.