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– Kevin Warsh was sworn in as Fed chief at the White House on Friday.

He took office amid rising rates as markets anticipate a possible rate hike.

Trump emphasized that Kevin should act on his own, even though he is pushing for lower rates.

Kevin Warsh was sworn in as chairman of the Federal Reserve at the White House on Friday morning, giving President Donald Trump a new Fed chief at a challenging time for the U.S. economy.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took the oath of office. Also present at the ceremony were Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Kevin will now have to work with a president who wants a rate cut, a Fed board that doesn’t fully embrace inflation concerns, and traders who believe the next rate decision could be an increase rather than a cut.

Trump used the ceremony to argue that Kevin should make his own decisions at the central bank, despite Trump’s public calls for rate cuts.

I want Kevin to be totally independent. I want him to be independent and just do a great job. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing. Do a great job. Okay? Trump said. We want to stop inflation, but we don’t want to stop growth.

Kevin didn’t ignore the Fed’s past missteps. He believes that past Fed leaders overreacted during and after the coronavirus crisis. In his opinion, the central bank has fueled inflation by being too lenient for too long.

Inflation is the result of misguided policy, not coincidence, Kevin said in a forthcoming book interview.

The president has never asked me to commit to an interest rate cut at any particular meeting during my tenure at the Fed. He never asked, he never demanded, he never insisted, and I would never have agreed to that, Kevin said.

But on policy issues, Kevin has stayed much closer to Trump’s position. He refrained from commenting on who will win the 2020 election or whether Trump’s tariffs have affected inflation.

Kevin has stakes in over a dozen cryptocurrency companies. He is involved in projects related to DeFi lending, decentralized derivatives, tier 1 and tier 2 network projects, prediction markets and bitcoin payment systems.

Financial documents indicate that Kevin and his wife have at least $192 million in assets. This includes investments in such promising projects as Solana, Optimism, Dapper Labs, Polychain Capital, and several DeFi startups.

As for his views on bitcoin, they are quite unconventional for the former conservative central banker. He doesn’t see it as an alternative form of currency, but rather as a warning system for politicians.

“I think of bitcoin as a good policeman, Kevin said in an interview with 2025. “It’s a valuable asset that can help inform policymakers about the rightness or wrongness of their actions.

He also said that bitcoin is “not something he’s worried about.

Kevin argued that cryptocurrencies are important to American innovation and competitiveness.

At his confirmation hearing, Kevin said that digital assets have already become part of the fabric of the U.S. financial services industry. “I will lead a reform-oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and failures, avoiding rigid attitudes and models, and upholding clear standards of integrity and efficiency, Kevin said Friday.