| Article | Published |
|---|---|
| Do Stablecoins Cause Currency Crises?A July 2026 IMF Working Paper by Brandon Joel Tan models stablecoins in fixed exchange-rate regimes as both an access technology and an information technology: they cut the cost of dollar hedging and turn many fragmented parallel prices into one public signal. In calm conditions that improves welfare; once a peg is badly misaligned, the same signal can help households coordinate an exit. Drawing on the paper, BIS spillover evidence and Bolivia's experience, the article argues stablecoins can intensify a currency crisis but rarely originate one, and that suppressing the price does not restore lost credibility. The better response is proportionate regulation of issuers, lawful low-value access, narrow and time-limited emergency tools, privacy-conscious data, and macroeconomic repair. | 12 min |
| Open USD, Qivalis, and the Race to Own Stablecoin SettlementOpen USD, a dollar stablecoin backed by a 140-plus company consortium including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard and Coinbase, and Qivalis, a 37-bank euro stablecoin project, are best read not as new tokens but as competing bids to own the architecture of digital settlement. Both share reserve economics and governance more widely than the single-issuer model, and both are control projects dressed in the language of openness. Against a concentrated $302bn market (USDT 61 per cent, USDC 24.2 per cent, HHI 4,324), the next contest will be decided by governance, reserves, redemption, liquidity and access, not market cap. The better outcome is disciplined competition, not a new consortium gate or a state-controlled CBDC. | 22 min |
| BIS vs Stablecoins: The Fragmentation Debate Is BackBIS General Manager Pablo Hernández de Cos called global stablecoin cooperation critically important in April 2026. The data tells a more specific story. At $325.4 billion and an HHI of 3,995, the stablecoin market is dominated by two issuers, not dispersed across hundreds. The fragmentation that matters is legal and operational: inconsistent reserve standards, uneven redemption rights, and jurisdiction shopping across frameworks that do not yet talk to each other. | 25 min |
| Stablecoin Market Recap: March 4–11, 2026The total stablecoin market cap rose $5.0B to $323.42B during the week of March 4–11, led by a $1.87B inflow into USDC. | 3 min |