The writer is a professor at Cornell, senior fellow at Brookings, and author of ‘The Future of Money’
The passage of US stablecoin legislation has set off tremors around the world. Many countries are shaken at the prospect of dollar-backed stablecoins reinforcing the dollar’s dominance in international payments and perhaps even supplanting their domestic payment systems. The European Central Bank has warned of loss of monetary autonomy and greater geopolitical dependency on the US.
A number of countries have rushed to update or issue regulation in the hopes of spurring private issuance of stablecoins pegged to their own currencies, limiting the use of foreign currency-backed versions.