Overview
- Pablo Hernández de Cos, speaking Monday at a Bank of Japan seminar in Tokyo, called global coordination on stablecoin regulation “critical” to prevent market fragmentation and regulatory arbitrage.
- He urged safeguards against runs by guaranteeing one‑to‑one redemption, adding protections for coin holders, and allowing supervised access to central‑bank liquidity under strict conditions.
- He said dollar‑pegged tokens can speed cross‑border payments yet threaten monetary policy, credit supply, and efforts to police money laundering and terrorist financing.
- He argued Tether and Circle, which issue about 85% of the roughly $315 billion in stablecoins, behave more like exchange‑traded funds than money because fees and other frictions can push prices off par.
- He noted progress on shared standards has slowed even as Abu Dhabi, Singapore, and the U.S. under the 2025 GENIUS Act set national rules, raising the risk of a patchwork that bad actors and fragile issuers could exploit.