Bitcoin achieves real-time public verification of all transaction records through its open-source ledger technology, with every node capable of independent auditing, ensuring data immutability and full traceability. Its self-auditing特性 stems from its decentralized design, eliminating the need for third-party trust.

The Federal Reserve, despite regularly publishing reports and meeting minutes, has never undergone a comprehensive independent audit of its core operations—such as emergency lending programs and foreign exchange swap facilities. Citing national security and decision-making independence, sensitive details remain undisclosed.

Market and Regulatory Impact:

• Bitcoin’s on-chain data provides regulators with tools to track illicit activities (e.g., recovering ransom payments) while bolstering long-term investor confidence.

• The Fed’s "selective transparency" relies on policy guidance rather than data verification, potentially triggering market volatility. Its global influence makes the lack of transparency a matter of international concern.

Fundamental Difference:
Bitcoin enforces transparency through technology, whereas the Fed, as a traditional central institution, prioritizes controlling information flow to maintain policy flexibility and market stability. This contrast reflects a fundamental divergence in accountability mechanisms between decentralized finance and traditional financial systems.

Summary
Bitcoin, leveraging open-source ledger technology, enables real-time public verification of all transactions. In contrast, the 112-year-old Federal Reserve, while regularly publishing reports, has never undergone a full audit. Key details of its emergency lending programs and foreign exchange swap operations remain undisclosed. Why?

This featured content, translated by Running Finance · Web3.0 Reading Room from Ankish Jain’s "Why 16-year-old Bitcoin has an audit trail while the 112-year-old Fed does not," compares their auditing mechanisms, market impact, and regulatory efficiency. It reveals the essential differences in transparency paradigms between central banking and digital currency, analyzing the practical effects of this divergence on investors, policymakers, and the global financial system.

1. Bitcoin’s Self-Auditing Mechanism
Bitcoin is often described as a peer-to-peer digital currency, but one of its most underappreciated features is its self-auditing capability. The network confirms a new block every 10 minutes through proof-of-work, validated by thousands of independent nodes globally.

Since January 2009, it has maintained a continuous public record spanning over 900,000 blocks and nearly 1.2 billion transactions. Anyone with internet access can verify the data in real time without permission.

In contrast, the 112-year-old Federal Reserve, a pillar of the U.S. financial system—managing interest rates, money supply, and economic stability—has never undergone a fully independent audit. While it regularly releases policy meeting minutes, balance sheets, and financial statements, core operations such as emergency lending details, foreign exchange swap facilities, and interactions with private banks remain shielded from external scrutiny.

The comparison is striking: 16-year-old Bitcoin maintains a fully public financial trail, while the century-old institution controlling the world’s largest economy avoids equivalent审查.

2. The Logic of Bitcoin’s Self-Verification
Bitcoin’s continuous auditing is a natural byproduct of its open-source design.

All network participants have equal rights to verify rules, breaking down the information hierarchy inherent in banking—where insiders enjoy privileged access, and the public only receives what regulators disclose.

The concept of full nodes is central to the system’s operation; they act as independent referees. Nodes require no special permission or political approval—anyone can run one using consumer-grade hardware and obtain a complete copy of the ledger. This "don’t trust, verify" principle ensures the 21 million Bitcoin supply cap is enforced without relying on trust in authorities.

Each newly mined block contains a fixed amount of newly created Bitcoin, reduced approximately every four years through a "halving" mechanism. From the initial 50 BTC per block in 2009 to 3.125 BTC after the April 2024 halving, every unit of currency in circulation can be traced back to its birth block.

Blockchain analytics firms like Chainalysis, Elliptic, and Glassnode have built entire business models around Bitcoin’s public ledger. Regulators also leverage the network’s transparency to track criminal activities, such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2021 recovery of 63.7 Bitcoin paid as ransom in the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack by tracing blockchain wallet addresses.

The reliability of this auditing stems not only from transparency but also from redundancy. Copies of the Bitcoin ledger are distributed across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Even if a government shuts down exchanges or data centers in one region, the data remains accessible elsewhere, ensuring the auditing process is continuous and censorship-resistant.

3. The Federal Reserve’s Global Role
The Fed holds a unique position in global finance. While it only sets U.S. monetary policy, its influence extends far beyond national borders. According to IMF data, the U.S. dollar accounts for about 58% of global foreign exchange reserves, and nearly 90% of global trade transactions use the dollar in some form.

Given this influence, the Fed’s transparency is not just a domestic issue but an international concern. The agency regularly publishes its weekly H.4.1 balance sheet, the Beige Book on economic conditions, and detailed Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes. It also releases annually audited financial statements disclosing assets, liabilities, and income.

However, these disclosures only scratch the surface of its operations. The central bank’s most powerful tools remain outside independent scrutiny.

Take emergency lending programs, for example: During the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed created facilities to lend trillions of dollars to domestic and foreign banks. The Levy Economics Institute later estimated total support across these programs exceeded $29 trillion. But details of these interventions were only disclosed years later due to lawsuits and congressional pressure.

Similar secrecy surrounds the Fed’s extensive use of foreign exchange swap lines—tools that allow foreign central banks to borrow U.S. dollars during global liquidity crunches.

Calls for greater transparency have persisted. Representative Ron Paul’s 2009 "Audit the Fed" bill passed the House but was significantly diluted before becoming law. Senator Rand Paul renewed efforts in 2015 but again faced defeat in the Senate.

The Fed has consistently opposed these attempts, with officials arguing that full transparency could politicize its decisions and undermine independence. Former Chair Ben Bernanke warned in 2010 that auditing monetary policy deliberations could "seriously threaten the independence of monetary policy and financial stability."

This has led to what some economists call "selective transparency": The Fed discloses enough information to maintain market credibility but keeps the most sensitive details hidden from public view.

4. Implications of the Transparency Gap
The transparency difference between Bitcoin and the Fed impacts markets, regulation, and public accountability in three key ways:

First, at the level of market behavior.

Glassnode data shows that in 2023, over 68% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply was held for more than a year—a metric used to gauge long-term investor conviction. Unlike Bitcoin, where on-chain data directly reflects holder behavior, the U.S. dollar supply lacks comparable statistics—the central bank’s disclosures focus on macro aggregates, not individual actions.

The Fed instead creates a reverse mechanism:

It communicates monetary policy through announcements and press conferences, and market participants react to guidance rather than verifiable data.

Traders rely quarterly on the dot plot to interpret interest rate prospects, even though these are merely committee views, not firm commitments. The gap between expectations and reality can trigger trillions of dollars in global market volatility within minutes, highlighting the weight of selective communication versus direct visibility.

The regulatory sphere similarly reflects this contrast in values. Bitcoin’s fully open ledger enables global regulators to achieve compliance via the blockchain.

Chainalysis reported that in 2023, U.S. authorities seized $3.4 billion in Bitcoin related to criminal cases through on-chain tracing. In contrast, the Fed’s dealings with troubled institutions during crises—such as its 2019 overnight repo market intervention—were initially opaque. Only aggregate volumes were disclosed, and the identities of borrowing banks remained confidential.

The credibility gap also affects international relations. Countries heavily reliant on the dollar for trade or reserves must accept Fed decisions without full knowledge of its strategy, fueling interest in alternatives.

According to the Atlantic Council’s 2025 Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker, the BRICS group is discussing reducing dollar dependency, and over 130 central banks are experimenting with digital currencies.

The transparency gap matters because it reshapes perceptions of financial fairness. Both models have their merits, but as digital systems redefine standards of financial accountability, this对比 is becoming increasingly stark.

Bitcoin achieves real-time public verification of all transaction records through its open-source ledger technology, with every node capable of independent auditing, ensuring data immutability and full traceability. Its self-auditing特性 stems from its decentralized design, eliminating the need for third-party trust.

The Federal Reserve, despite regularly publishing reports and meeting minutes, has never undergone a comprehensive independent audit of its core operations—such as emergency lending programs and foreign exchange swap facilities. Citing national security and decision-making independence, sensitive details remain undisclosed.

Market and Regulatory Impact:

• Bitcoin’s on-chain data provides regulators with tools to track illicit activities (e.g., recovering ransom payments) while bolstering long-term investor confidence.

• The Fed’s "selective transparency" relies on policy guidance rather than data verification, potentially triggering market volatility. Its global influence makes the lack of transparency a matter of international concern.

Fundamental Difference:
Bitcoin enforces transparency through technology, whereas the Fed, as a traditional central institution, prioritizes controlling information flow to maintain policy flexibility and market stability. This contrast reflects a fundamental divergence in accountability mechanisms between decentralized finance and traditional financial systems.

Summary
Bitcoin, leveraging open-source ledger technology, enables real-time public verification of all transactions. In contrast, the 112-year-old Federal Reserve, while regularly publishing reports, has never undergone a full audit. Key details of its emergency lending programs and foreign exchange swap operations remain undisclosed. Why?

This featured content, translated by Running Finance · Web3.0 Reading Room from Ankish Jain’s "Why 16-year-old Bitcoin has an audit trail while the 112-year-old Fed does not," compares their auditing mechanisms, market impact, and regulatory efficiency. It reveals the essential differences in transparency paradigms between central banking and digital currency, analyzing the practical effects of this divergence on investors, policymakers, and the global financial system.

1. Bitcoin’s Self-Auditing Mechanism
Bitcoin is often described as a peer-to-peer digital currency, but one of its most underappreciated features is its self-auditing capability. The network confirms a new block every 10 minutes through proof-of-work, validated by thousands of independent nodes globally.

Since January 2009, it has maintained a continuous public record spanning over 900,000 blocks and nearly 1.2 billion transactions. Anyone with internet access can verify the data in real time without permission.

In contrast, the 112-year-old Federal Reserve, a pillar of the U.S. financial system—managing interest rates, money supply, and economic stability—has never undergone a fully independent audit. While it regularly releases policy meeting minutes, balance sheets, and financial statements, core operations such as emergency lending details, foreign exchange swap facilities, and interactions with private banks remain shielded from external scrutiny.

The comparison is striking: 16-year-old Bitcoin maintains a fully public financial trail, while the century-old institution controlling the world’s largest economy avoids equivalent审查.

2. The Logic of Bitcoin’s Self-Verification
Bitcoin’s continuous auditing is a natural byproduct of its open-source design.

All network participants have equal rights to verify rules, breaking down the information hierarchy inherent in banking—where insiders enjoy privileged access, and the public only receives what regulators disclose.

The concept of full nodes is central to the system’s operation; they act as independent referees. Nodes require no special permission or political approval—anyone can run one using consumer-grade hardware and obtain a complete copy of the ledger. This "don’t trust, verify" principle ensures the 21 million Bitcoin supply cap is enforced without relying on trust in authorities.

Each newly mined block contains a fixed amount of newly created Bitcoin, reduced approximately every four years through a "halving" mechanism. From the initial 50 BTC per block in 2009 to 3.125 BTC after the April 2024 halving, every unit of currency in circulation can be traced back to its birth block.

Blockchain analytics firms like Chainalysis, Elliptic, and Glassnode have built entire business models around Bitcoin’s public ledger. Regulators also leverage the network’s transparency to track criminal activities, such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2021 recovery of 63.7 Bitcoin paid as ransom in the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack by tracing blockchain wallet addresses.

The reliability of this auditing stems not only from transparency but also from redundancy. Copies of the Bitcoin ledger are distributed across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Even if a government shuts down exchanges or data centers in one region, the data remains accessible elsewhere, ensuring the auditing process is continuous and censorship-resistant.

3. The Federal Reserve’s Global Role
The Fed holds a unique position in global finance. While it only sets U.S. monetary policy, its influence extends far beyond national borders. According to IMF data, the U.S. dollar accounts for about 58% of global foreign exchange reserves, and nearly 90% of global trade transactions use the dollar in some form.

Given this influence, the Fed’s transparency is not just a domestic issue but an international concern. The agency regularly publishes its weekly H.4.1 balance sheet, the Beige Book on economic conditions, and detailed Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes. It also releases annually audited financial statements disclosing assets, liabilities, and income.

However, these disclosures only scratch the surface of its operations. The central bank’s most powerful tools remain outside independent scrutiny.

Take emergency lending programs, for example: During the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed created facilities to lend trillions of dollars to domestic and foreign banks. The Levy Economics Institute later estimated total support across these programs exceeded $29 trillion. But details of these interventions were only disclosed years later due to lawsuits and congressional pressure.

Similar secrecy surrounds the Fed’s extensive use of foreign exchange swap lines—tools that allow foreign central banks to borrow U.S. dollars during global liquidity crunches.

Calls for greater transparency have persisted. Representative Ron Paul’s 2009 "Audit the Fed" bill passed the House but was significantly diluted before becoming law. Senator Rand Paul renewed efforts in 2015 but again faced defeat in the Senate.

The Fed has consistently opposed these attempts, with officials arguing that full transparency could politicize its decisions and undermine independence. Former Chair Ben Bernanke warned in 2010 that auditing monetary policy deliberations could "seriously threaten the independence of monetary policy and financial stability."

This has led to what some economists call "selective transparency": The Fed discloses enough information to maintain market credibility but keeps the most sensitive details hidden from public view.

4. Implications of the Transparency Gap
The transparency difference between Bitcoin and the Fed impacts markets, regulation, and public accountability in three key ways:

First, at the level of market behavior.

Glassnode data shows that in 2023, over 68% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply was held for more than a year—a metric used to gauge long-term investor conviction. Unlike Bitcoin, where on-chain data directly reflects holder behavior, the U.S. dollar supply lacks comparable statistics—the central bank’s disclosures focus on macro aggregates, not individual actions.

The Fed instead creates a reverse mechanism:

It communicates monetary policy through announcements and press conferences, and market participants react to guidance rather than verifiable data.

Traders rely quarterly on the dot plot to interpret interest rate prospects, even though these are merely committee views, not firm commitments. The gap between expectations and reality can trigger trillions of dollars in global market volatility within minutes, highlighting the weight of selective communication versus direct visibility.

The regulatory sphere similarly reflects this contrast in values. Bitcoin’s fully open ledger enables global regulators to achieve compliance via the blockchain.

Chainalysis reported that in 2023, U.S. authorities seized $3.4 billion in Bitcoin related to criminal cases through on-chain tracing. In contrast, the Fed’s dealings with troubled institutions during crises—such as its 2019 overnight repo market intervention—were initially opaque. Only aggregate volumes were disclosed, and the identities of borrowing banks remained confidential.

The credibility gap also affects international relations. Countries heavily reliant on the dollar for trade or reserves must accept Fed decisions without full knowledge of its strategy, fueling interest in alternatives.

According to the Atlantic Council’s 2025 Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker, the BRICS group is discussing reducing dollar dependency, and over 130 central banks are experimenting with digital currencies.

The transparency gap matters because it reshapes perceptions of financial fairness. Both models have their merits, but as digital systems redefine standards of financial accountability, this对比 is becoming increasingly stark.