Kevin Warsh Sworn In as Fed Chair; Hawk on Inflation, Pro-Crypto

Kevin Warsh was sworn in on May 22 as the 17th chair of the Federal Reserve, succeeding Jerome Powell after a narrow Senate confirmation vote. He takes over with headline inflation above the Fed’s 2% goal and a balance sheet of about $6.7 trillion; the federal funds target range is 3.50% to 3.75%.

Warsh served previously as a Fed governor, worked as a policy adviser in the Bush administration and has a background in finance. He resigned from the Fed in 2011 over additional quantitative easing and has since argued for scarcer reserves, a smaller central-bank balance sheet and stricter price stability.

At his Senate confirmation hearing he described the Fed’s delayed inflation response as structural, saying, ‘Once you let inflation take hold in the economy, it is more expensive and harder to bring it down,’ and adding that ‘we need a regime change in the conduct of policy.’

The Fed’s March dot plot shows policymakers projecting one interest-rate cut in 2026. March inflation was 3.3% after an oil-price spike linked to tensions with Iran.

Warsh has proposed changes to Fed communications, including retiring routine forward guidance, ending the regular post-meeting press conference cadence and adopting a new inflation framework. During the Powell-to-Warsh handoff he said he would not act as anyone’s ‘sock puppet.’

On digital assets, his financial-disclosure filings list more than $100 million in exposure across layer-one networks, decentralized finance projects and Bitcoin payments infrastructure. He has called Bitcoin a ‘sustainable store of value’ and has opposed a retail central bank digital currency.

Bitcoin has fallen from a January peak as expectations for the path of interest rates firmed. Warsh’s first meeting as chair of the Federal Open Market Committee will be watched for changes to policy, balance-sheet strategy and communications, and for potential effects on the dollar, interest rates and crypto markets through 2026.