Stablecoins Don’t Meet Core Requirements Of Money, BIS Says

bitcoinistОпубликовано 2026-04-21Обновлено 2026-04-21

Введение

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) General Manager, Pablo Hernández de Cos, stated that existing stablecoins fail to meet the core requirements of money, specifically "singleness" and "interoperability." Singleness refers to the need for different forms of money to be interchangeable at par value, which is ensured by central banks in traditional finance but not in decentralized stablecoins. Interoperability means seamless cross-platform transactions, which stablecoins currently lack due to fragmentation across multiple blockchains. These shortcomings limit stablecoins' network effects and widespread acceptance, keeping them a "niche" payment instrument. However, de Cos acknowledged their potential to improve cross-border payments, though he also warned of risks to financial stability and monetary policy. Despite a bearish crypto market, the stablecoin market cap has reached a new all-time high of over $320 billion.

The BIS General Manager has said that existing stablecoins fall short of the requirements for a widely accepted and used payment instrument.

Stablecoins Remain A “Niche” Payment Instrument

Pablo Hernández de Cos, General Manager at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), spoke on the topic of stablecoins at a Bank of Japan seminar in Tokyo on Monday. The BIS is an international financial institution that serves as a bank for central banks. It’s owned by constituent central banks, of which there are 63 in total at the moment. The institution has been vocal about its concerns regarding stablecoins in the past.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that have their price tied to a fiat currency. In recent years, these tokens have gained popularity, inviting regulation from major economic hubs.

Since stables run on blockchain technology, they naturally offer relatively cheap 24/7 transactions. This has made their main use, besides being a store of value, as a mode of payments.

Stablecoins try to mimic fiat currencies, but do they count as “money”? de Cos has discussed the two features that decide the “moneyness” of an instrument: singleness and interoperability.

First, singleness is the idea that different forms of money should be perfectly substitutable at par across financial intermediaries and platforms. In fiat economics, this is facilitated by central banks. For the decentralized stablecoins, there is no such central settlement so deviations can emerge.

Though, these differences tend to be relatively modest. “Yet confidence shocks can widen discounts abruptly and, when they do, users may refuse to accept certain stablecoins, as seen on several occasions in the past,” said de Cos.

The other property, interoperability, means that users can send and receive funds seamlessly across platforms and networks. Today, stablecoins are distributed across a wide range of blockchains, so even versions of the same token that run on different blockchains aren’t interoperable by default.

The BIS General Manager explained:

Together, these features undermine the network effects that are key to money – the use of money begets its acceptance, and acceptance begets wider use. It is therefore conceivable that under current designs stablecoins remain a “niche” instrument.

While current stablecoin systems may fall short of the requirements of a widely accepted payment instrument, de Cos noted that they have the potential to significantly enhance cross-border payments. But the opportunities provided by fiat-tied cryptocurrencies don’t come without challenges; the BIS head cautioned that these assets can affect credit supply, financial stability, and monetary and fiscal policy.

The wider digital asset sector has faced bearish winds since Q4 2025, but the stablecoin market has managed to hold up relatively well as its market cap has seen a slight uptrend in this period, according to data from DefiLlama.

The trend in the stablecoin market cap over the last few years | Source: DefiLlama

Currently, the fiat-pegged coins have a combined valuation of over $320 billion, which is a new all-time high.

Bitcoin Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $75,000, up more than 6% over the past week.

The price of the coin seems to have retraced from its Friday high | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

Связанные с этим вопросы

QAccording to the BIS General Manager, what are the two key features that determine the 'moneyness' of an instrument like a stablecoin?

AThe two key features are singleness and interoperability.

QWhat is the main reason the BIS believes stablecoins currently remain a 'niche' payment instrument?

ABecause they lack the network effects that are key to money, as their design undermines singleness and interoperability, which prevents wider acceptance and use.

QDespite their shortcomings, what potential benefit of stablecoins did the BIS General Manager acknowledge?

AHe noted that stablecoins have the potential to significantly enhance cross-border payments.

QWhat is the current total market capitalization of all stablecoins as mentioned in the article?

AThe combined valuation is over $320 billion, which is a new all-time high.

QWhat are the two specific risks that the BIS head cautioned stablecoins could pose?

AThey can affect credit supply, financial stability, and monetary and fiscal policy.

Похожее

GitHub, Transfixed by AI

On the night of February 9th, GitHub suffered a major outage caused by a simple configuration change—reducing a cache refresh interval from 12 to 2 hours—that triggered a cascade of failures. This was not an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern. In early 2026, GitHub experienced at least 8 major incidents, failing to meet its promised 99.9% availability. These outages stemmed from structural issues: explosive growth in load, tight service coupling, and insufficient protection against abnormal traffic. This unprecedented load is driven by AI Agents. In 2025, GitHub handled ~1 billion commits. By 2026, weekly commits reached 275 million, projecting to ~14 billion for the year—a 14x increase. AI tools like Claude Code now contribute 4.5% of all public repository commits, with weekly submissions surging 25x in just three months. AI-generated pull requests jumped from 4 million to 17 million per month in half a year. Unlike human developers, AI Agents work continuously, generating commits at a scale that overwhelms infrastructure designed for human rhythms. The surge also shattered GitHub's business model. Copilot's flat-rate pricing, based on assisting human developers, became unsustainable as Agentic AI sessions consumed resources worth hundreds of dollars for a few dollars in fees. In response, GitHub imposed usage limits and, by June 1st, shifted to a pay-per-use "AI Credits" system. Facing this new reality, GitHub realized a 10x scaling plan was insufficient. It announced a need to *redesign* its architecture for 30x current scale—decoupling services, adding fault isolation, and improving change management to prevent cascading failures. Other platforms like Stripe and AWS are facing similar challenges with AI Agents. Fundamentally, GitHub is transitioning from a human collaboration platform to an "exhaust pipe" for automated AI workflows. Its detailed post-mortem reports aim to maintain trust during this turbulent rebuild. The February outage was not just a technical glitch, but a signal of the software industry's entry into a new, AI-driven era.

marsbit14 мин. назад

marsbit14 мин. назад

Visualizing Musk's Wealth: $3.6 Million Per Hour, Average Person Needs 11 Million Years of Work

Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming the world's first trillionaire, with a current estimated net worth of $970 billion. This wealth, largely tied to equity in SpaceX and Tesla, translates to him accumulating roughly $992 per second or $3.6 million per hour on average over his 31-year career. His fortune surpasses the annual GDP of over 125 countries and represents about 3% of U.S. GDP, double the relative wealth of historical figures like John D. Rockefeller. For perspective, an average U.S. household earning the median income would need to work over 11 million years to amass a comparable sum. Musk's wealth could buy approximately 2.4 million average American homes, all 32 NFL teams plus every NBA team, or over 10,000 private jets with operating costs. The analysis highlights the staggering scale and concentration of modern wealth, driven by successes in electric vehicles, space exploration, and artificial intelligence.

marsbit17 мин. назад

Visualizing Musk's Wealth: $3.6 Million Per Hour, Average Person Needs 11 Million Years of Work

marsbit17 мин. назад

Both Suffer Massive Losses Exceeding $90 Billion, Which Is in Greater Peril: Strategy or Bitmine?

Facing massive paper losses exceeding $90 billion each amidst a sharp market downturn, "Digital Asset Treasury" (DAT) giants Strategy and Bitmine find themselves in a precarious position, but with different underlying risks. Strategy, heavily invested in Bitcoin (BTC), faces significant financial strain. Its strategy relies heavily on debt, including convertible notes and preferred stock (STRC) requiring substantial dividend payments. With its cash reserves dwindling and BTC offering no staking yield for cash flow, Strategy's high leverage makes it vulnerable. A continued price decline could force asset sales to meet obligations, potentially creating a negative feedback loop. Its market value has already fallen sharply. In contrast, Bitmine, an Ethereum (ETH) holder, appears on firmer financial ground. It primarily funds its purchases through equity offerings (like ATM programs), avoiding debt pressure. It also generates income by staking a large portion of its ETH holdings. While not immune to market drops and shareholder dilution concerns, Bitmine maintains more flexibility, recently announcing a new preferred share offering to raise further capital. The core divergence lies in their financing: Bitmine uses equity (investor money), while Strategy uses debt (borrowed money). Consequently, Bitmine currently faces less immediate liquidity pressure than Strategy, which must navigate the dual challenge of servicing debt/dividends and a declining core asset (BTC) price.

marsbit21 мин. назад

Both Suffer Massive Losses Exceeding $90 Billion, Which Is in Greater Peril: Strategy or Bitmine?

marsbit21 мин. назад

Both Suffer Losses Exceeding $9 Billion, Which Is More at Risk: Strategy or Bitmine?

As Bitcoin and Ethereum prices drop significantly, two major corporate treasury holders, Strategy and Bitmine, are facing massive unrealized losses—approximately $100 billion and $90 billion, respectively. The article compares their financial health and underlying risks. Bitmine, holding over 5.4 million ETH, relies primarily on equity financing (like ATM offerings) and has substantial cash reserves, alongside staking income from its ETH holdings. It plans a $300 million perpetual preferred stock offering. In contrast, Strategy, holding Bitcoin, is burdened by significant convertible debt and preferred stock dividends, with cash reserves covering only about six months of its annual dividend obligations. Strategy's leverage is higher, and it faces potential liquidity pressure if BTC prices fall further, possibly forcing asset sales. While both companies are under pressure, Bitmine’s financial structure appears more resilient, whereas Strategy’s high leverage makes it more vulnerable to continued market declines.

Odaily星球日报25 мин. назад

Both Suffer Losses Exceeding $9 Billion, Which Is More at Risk: Strategy or Bitmine?

Odaily星球日报25 мин. назад

Where the AI Bubble Really Is: Which Layer of Players Are Naked

AI Bubble: Where It Really Is and Who's Swimming Naked This analysis dissects the AI industry not as a single entity but as a five-layer pyramid, arguing that bubbles are concentrated in specific tiers, not uniformly distributed. **Key Distinction from the 2000 Dot-com Bubble:** Unlike 2000, where companies had stock prices before revenue, today's leading AI players have massive, contract-backed revenue driving their valuations. Core infrastructure demand is real, with every GPU running at full capacity for paying customers. **The Five-Layer Pyramid & Bubble Assessment:** * **L0 (Fab/Manufacturing) & Top L4 (Leading AI Apps): NO BUBBLE.** Companies like TSMC, NVIDIA, major cloud providers (Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon), and top AI labs have real revenues and orders. Supply is tightly constrained by TSMC's disciplined capacity control and physical limits like power/land for data centers, preventing a supply glut. * **L1 (Memory): BATTLEGROUND.** Sky-high HBM margins could signal a new structural cycle or a classic "boom before bust." The oligopoly of three major players may enforce supply discipline, making this a high-stakes bet. * **L2 (Interconnect/Optical Modules): BUBBLE TERRITORY.** Companies like Lumentum and AAOI have seen stock surges (4-10x) far outpacing revenue growth. This hardware segment has lower physical barriers to expansion than fabs, allowing speculation. It mirrors the 2000 bubble's epicenter—optics. * **L3 (Infrastructure/"GPU Landlords"): VULNERABLE.** GPU leasing companies profit from the current compute shortage but own no long-term moat. Their business model relies on a temporary bottleneck that will ease as big tech expands and new tech (e.g., potential space-based data centers) emerges. * **L4 Long Tail (VC-backed Startups): STRONG BUBBLE SIGNALS.** VC funding concentration in AI is twice that of the 1999 peak. Many startups with little revenue use the valuation logic of successful giants to justify their own, creating high risk of a "valuation crunch" when funding dries up. **Critical Risks to Monitor:** 1. **GPU Depreciation & Accounting:** Companies extending the assumed useful life of GPUs artificially boost profits. The true economic life depends on future generational leaps from NVIDIA. 2. **"GPU Credit" & Off-Balance-Sheet Leverage:** Emerging structures where shell companies borrow to buy GPUs and lease them out (with chipmakers sometimes investing) move debt off major balance sheets. This echoes the "vendor financing" of 2000 and the securitization risks of 2008, though currently small-scale. 3. **TSMC Abandoning Caution:** If the primary supply bottleneck (TSMC's conservative capacity planning) breaks, runaway supply could trigger a bust. 4. **Algorithmic Efficiency Breakthrough:** A major leap in software efficiency could drastically reduce the need for raw compute hardware, undermining the investment thesis. **Conclusion:** The AI boom is expensive and has frothy areas, but its core is underpinned by real demand and physical supply constraints. The bubble risk is layered: most present in optical components, GPU leasing, and the long-tail startup ecosystem, while the foundational chip manufacturing and leading application layers remain relatively solid—for now.

marsbit33 мин. назад

Where the AI Bubble Really Is: Which Layer of Players Are Naked

marsbit33 мин. назад

Торговля

Спот

Фьючерсы

Обсуждения

Добро пожаловать в Сообщество HTX. Здесь вы сможете быть в курсе последних новостей о развитии платформы и получить доступ к профессиональной аналитической информации о рынке. Мнения пользователей о цене на CORE (CORE) представлены ниже.