| Article | Published |
|---|---|
| Stablecoin Yield and the New Regulatory BoundaryStablecoin regulation has largely focused on making sure issuers can meet redemptions and that the assets backing their tokens are safe. Regulators are now turning to a more complicated question: should stablecoin holders be able to earn a return on those balances? Europe already restricts interest payments under MiCA and is considering how those rules should apply when stablecoins are used in lending, staking, and DeFi. The United States faces a similar debate. The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying yield directly, while an effort to set boundaries around third-party rewards through the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate. The debate matters because yield changes how people use stablecoins. Once they can generate a return, they begin competing more directly with bank deposits and other savings products. That raises broader questions about bank funding, the investment of stablecoin reserves, and who ultimately receives the income those reserves generate. | 20 min |
| MiCA's Stablecoin Trap: Compliance, Surveillance, and Europe's Competitiveness ProblemAn unresolved EBA Single Rulebook Q&A asks whether MiCA e-money token issuers must treat every holder as a client for AML purposes on an ongoing basis, including after secondary-market transfers. The answer, now pending with the European Commission, will decide whether MiCA-compliant stablecoins remain open, transferable digital money or become permissioned, surveillance-heavy e-money systems. The question applies to euro tokens such as EURC and to dollar tokens like USDC issued under MiCA, and it helps explain why Tether has stayed out. Europe's competitiveness and privacy both turn on whether obligations attach to real control points or to issuers alone. | 24 min |
| Europe's Stablecoin Policy Is Becoming a Market Access RegimeA Germany-Italy proposal would condition EU market access for stablecoins on regulatory equivalence and give the EBA power to ban non-compliant issuers. It reframes stablecoins as cross-border monetary instruments requiring jurisdictional scrutiny, not just firm-level compliance. | 12 min |