| 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 |
| Digital Euro vs Open StablecoinsEurope's digital money debate is not a binary contest between a digital euro and crypto. It is a choice among four architectures: a retail CBDC, bank-led euro stablecoins such as the Qivalis consortium, tokenized deposits, and open stablecoin rails. The ECB has cleared a key parliamentary step for the digital euro, but holding caps and bank-centric distribution may limit its competitive force, while euro stablecoins still account for only about 0.3 percent of a roughly $300 billion market. The real question is whether digital payments become open, competitive infrastructure or get rebuilt around a few public and bank-controlled gateways. The better path is open discipline: strict reserves, enforceable redemption, bankruptcy remoteness, interoperability, and privacy safeguards across all digital money models. | 20 min |
| Stablecoins Are Becoming Instruments of Currency CompetitionRecent moves in the United States and Europe suggest that stablecoins are no longer just a crypto market utility or a payments technology question. They are increasingly becoming instruments through which currencies are distributed into digital commerce, cross-border settlement, and programmable financial environments. | 11 min |