New Fed chair Kevin Warsh launches five task forces to overhaul monetary policy, and crypto is nowhere on the agenda

Kevin Warsh has been running the Federal Reserve for roughly two months, and he’s already doing something his predecessors rarely attempted: asking other people what they think before telling everyone what he thinks. On July 9, 2026, the 17th Fed chair announced the formation of five external task forces designed to rethink how the central bank communicates, manages its balance sheet, uses data, frames inflation, and responds to the productivity effects of artificial intelligence. The groups are stacked with heavyweight names, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, and former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan. Recommendations are due by the end of 2026. A deliberate blank slate In conversations with outside experts, he’s posed pointed questions about policy direction without expressing his own views. Warsh has publicly described his vision as a “regime change” in how the Fed conducts monetary policy. He wants less reliance on forward guidance, which is the Fed’s practice of telegraphing future rate moves to markets months in advance. He wants a tighter focus on the dual mandate: maximizing employment and stabilizing pr...