Photo courtesy of Elsa Ruiz
By Sydney Ember, The New York Times
As Treasury Secretary, Lawrence H. Summers took on complex economic policy.
On Wednesday night, he took on Bitcoin.
Speaking at the Museum of American Finance on Wall Street, Mr. Summers said Bitcoin, the virtual currency that has become a phenomenon in the technology and financial industries, could help reduce costs and inefficiencies in the global payments system. But so could other payment technologies.
“We have seen so little innovation cumulatively directed at taking the frictional costs out of the system,” Mr. Summers said. “The notion that there’s going to be a lot of innovation and experimentation around how those frictional costs can be taken out feels like a very important kind of idea.”