IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v79y2024ics0927539824000914.html

Are stablecoins the money market mutual funds of the future?

Author

Listed:
  • Oefele, Nico
  • Baur, Dirk G.
  • Smales, Lee A.

Abstract

This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive comparison of two financial instruments: stablecoins and money market mutual funds (MMFs). We observe similar reserve asset backing for fiat reserve backed (FRB) stablecoins and MMFs, similar importance of sponsor support, and the same negative association between macroeconomic indicators and peg deviations. Both instruments serve as short-term facilities for investors to park funds and their primary market microstructure is similar. However, FRB stablecoins exhibit larger dispersions from the dollar peg, significantly higher volatility, and a lack of transparency in their market infrastructure. Larger FRB stablecoins show reduced volatility compared to their smaller counterparts, with peg deviation drivers more closely resembling those of MMFs. We conclude that FRB stablecoins demonstrate remarkable similarities to MMFs and have the potential to become the MMFs of the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Oefele, Nico & Baur, Dirk G. & Smales, Lee A., 2024. "Are stablecoins the money market mutual funds of the future?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:79:y:2024:i:c:s0927539824000914
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2024.101557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539824000914
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2024.101557?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello, 2022. "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1194-1225, April.
    2. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2019. "Price Discovery in Cryptocurrency Markets," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 97-99, May.
    3. Lei Li & Yi Li & Marco Macchiavelli & Xing (Alex) Zhou, 2021. "Liquidity Restrictions, Runs, and Central Bank Interventions: Evidence from Money Market Funds [Dealer financial conditions and lender-of-last-resort facilities]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5402-5437.
    4. Antoine Bouveret & Antoine Martin & Patrick E. McCabe, 2022. "Money Market Fund Vulnerabilities: A Global Perspective," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-012, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & Marco Cipriani & Ryan M. Craver & Gabriele La Spada, 2022. "The Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 28(1), July.
    6. Bullmann, Dirk & Klemm, Jonas & Pinna, Andrea, 2019. "In search for stability in crypto-assets: are stablecoins the solution?," Occasional Paper Series 230, European Central Bank.
    7. Gadzinski, Gregory & Castello, Alessio & Mazzorana, Florie, 2023. "Stablecoins: Does design affect stability?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    8. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2019. "Price discovery in cryptocurrency markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100410, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & Pablo D. Azar & Catherine Huang & Marco Cipriani & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gabriele La Spada & Mattia Landoni & Marco Macchiavelli & Antoine Malfroy-Camine & J. Christina Wang, 2023. "Runs and Flights to Safety: Are Stablecoins the New Money Market Funds?," Supervisory Research and Analysis Working Papers SRA 23-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, revised 26 Mar 2024.
    10. John M. Griffin & Amin Shams, 2020. "Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1913-1964, August.
    11. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    12. Ken Anadu & Steffanie Brady & Nathaniel R. Cooper, 2012. "The stability of prime money market mutual funds: sponsor support from 2007 to 2011," Supervisory Research and Analysis Working Papers RPA 12-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Lyons, Richard K. & Viswanath-Natraj, Ganesh, 2023. "What keeps stablecoins stable?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    14. Itamar Drechsler & Alexi Savov & Philipp Schnabl, 2017. "The Deposits Channel of Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1819-1876.
    15. Ante, Lennart & Fiedler, Ingo & Strehle, Elias, 2021. "The influence of stablecoin issuances on cryptocurrency markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    16. Gary B. Gorton & Elizabeth C. Klee & Chase P. Ross & Sharon Y. Ross & Alexandros P. Vardoulakis, 2022. "Leverage and Stablecoin Pegs," NBER Working Papers 30796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Christian Catalini & Alonso de Gortari & Nihar Shah, 2022. "Some Simple Economics of Stablecoins," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 117-135, November.
    18. Oefele, Nico & Baur, Dirk G. & Smales, Lee A., 2024. "Flight-to-quality—Money market mutual funds and stablecoins during the March 2023 banking crisis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    19. Parlatore, Cecilia, 2016. "Fragility in money market funds: Sponsor support and regulation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 595-623.
    20. Baur, Dirk G. & Hoang, Lai T., 2021. "A crypto safe haven against Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    21. Grobys, Klaus & Junttila, Juha & Kolari, James W. & Sapkota, Niranjan, 2021. "On the stability of stablecoins," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 207-223.
    22. Ricardo Lagos & Guillaume Rocheteau & Randall Wright, 2017. "Liquidity: A New Monetarist Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(2), pages 371-440, June.
    23. Kairong Xiao & Francesca Cornelli, 2020. "Monetary Transmission through Shadow Banks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2379-2420.
    24. John Caramichael & Gordon Y. Liao, 2022. "Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking," International Finance Discussion Papers 1334, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Altavilla, Carlo & Boucinha, Miguel & Burlon, Lorenzo & Adalid, Ramón & Fortes, Roberta & Maruhn, Franziska, 2026. "Stablecoins and monetary policy transmission," Working Paper Series 3199, European Central Bank.
    2. Ferrari Minesso, Massimo & Siena, Daniele, 2026. "Private money and public debt. U.S. Stablecoins and the global safe asset channel," Working Paper Series 3174, European Central Bank.
    3. Aldasoro, Iñaki & Cornelli, Giulio & Ferrari Minesso, Massimo & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Habib, Maurizio Michael, 2025. "Stablecoins, money market funds and monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    4. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & John Levin & Lina Lu & Antoine Malfroy-Camine & Nico Oefele, 2025. "Are retail prime money market fund investors increasingly more sensitive to stress events?," Supervisory Research and Analysis Notes, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue 2025-01, pages 1-15, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dionysopoulos, Lambis & Urquhart, Andrew, 2024. "10 years of stablecoins: Their impact, what we know, and future research directions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    2. Lee, Yi-Hsi & Chiu, Yu-Fen & Hsieh, Ming-Hua, 2025. "Stablecoin depegging risk prediction," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Gregory, Gadzinski & Alessio, Castello & Vito, Liuzzi & Patrice, Sargenti, 2024. "Break a peg! A study of stablecoin co-instability," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    4. Meghna Jayasankar, 2025. "Efficient Market Hypothesis Versus Multifractality: Evidence from the Stablecoin Market," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 66(6), pages 5033-5054, December.
    5. Aldasoro, Iñaki & Cornelli, Giulio & Ferrari Minesso, Massimo & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Habib, Maurizio Michael, 2025. "Stablecoins, money market funds and monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    6. Lyons, Richard K. & Viswanath-Natraj, Ganesh, 2023. "What keeps stablecoins stable?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Łęt, Blanka & Sobański, Konrad & Świder, Wojciech & Włosik, Katarzyna, 2023. "What drives the popularity of stablecoins? Measuring the frequency dynamics of connectedness between volatile and stable cryptocurrencies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Palazzi, Rafael Baptista & Schich, Sebastian & de Genaro, Alan, 2025. "Stablecoins as anchors? Unraveling information flow dynamics between pegged and unpegged crypto-assets and fiat currencies," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    9. Rashad Ahmed & Iñaki Aldasoro, 2025. "Stablecoins and safe asset prices," BIS Working Papers 1270, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & John Levin & Lina Lu & Antoine Malfroy-Camine & Nico Oefele, 2025. "Are retail prime money market fund investors increasingly more sensitive to stress events?," Supervisory Research and Analysis Notes, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue 2025-01, pages 1-15, January.
    11. Perez Riaza, Baptiste & Gnabo, Jean-Yves, 2025. "From depegs to jumps: The role of stablecoin instabilities in crypto market dynamics," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Hui, Cho-Hoi & Wong, Andrew & Lo, Chi-Fai, 2025. "Stablecoin price dynamics under a peg-stabilising mechanism," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    13. Afzol Husain & Kwang-Jing Yii & Chorng Yuan Fung & Richard Busulwa, 2025. "Portfolio risk of cryptocurrency inclusion: a comparison among conventional cryptocurrencies and asset-backed cryptocurrencies," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 15(3), pages 687-739, September.
    14. Yosuke Kakinuma, 2023. "Hedging role of stablecoins," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 19-28, January.
    15. Richard K. Lyons & Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj, 2020. "What Keeps Stablecoins Stable?," NBER Working Papers 27136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & Pablo D. Azar & Catherine Huang & Marco Cipriani & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gabriele La Spada & Mattia Landoni & Marco Macchiavelli & Antoine Malfroy-Camine & J. Christina Wang, 2023. "Runs and Flights to Safety: Are Stablecoins the New Money Market Funds?," Staff Reports 1073, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    17. Philippe Bergault & Louis Bertucci & David Bouba & Olivier Gu'eant & Julien Guilbert, 2024. "Automated Market Making: the case of Pegged Assets," Papers 2411.08145, arXiv.org.
    18. Ahmed Bossman & Mariya Gubareva & Samuel Kwaku Agyei & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2024. "When you need them, they are not there: hedge capacities of cryptocurrencies disappear in downtrend markets," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, December.
    19. Kenechukwu E. Anadu & Patrick E. McCabe & JP Perez-Sangimino & Nathan Swem, 2026. "A Framework for Understanding the Vulnerabilities of New Money-Like Products," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2026-002, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Jacewitz, Stefan & Pogach, Jonathan & Unal, Haluk & Wu, Chengjun, 2025. "The regulatory dialectic in bank-sponsored money market funds," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:79:y:2024:i:c:s0927539824000914. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.