IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/902.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An early stablecoin? The Bank of Amsterdam and the governance of money

Author

Listed:
  • Jon Frost
  • Hyun Song Shin
  • Peter Wierts

Abstract

This paper draws lessons on the central bank underpinnings of money from the rise and fall of the Bank of Amsterdam (1609-1820). The Bank started out as a "stablecoin": it issued deposits backed by silver and gold coins, and settled payments by transfers across deposits. Over time, it performed functions of a modern central bank and its deposits took on attributes of fiat money. The economic shocks of the 1780s, large-scale lending and lack of fiscal support led to its failure. Using monthly balance sheet data, we show how confidence in Bank money gave way to a run equilibrium, where the fall of the premium on deposits over coins ("agio") into negative territory was swift and precipitous. This holds lessons for the governance of digital money.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Frost & Hyun Song Shin & Peter Wierts, 2020. "An early stablecoin? The Bank of Amsterdam and the governance of money," BIS Working Papers 902, Bank for International Settlements.
  • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work902.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work902.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Z. Aliber & Charles P. Kindleberger, 2015. "Manias, Panics, and Crashes," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, edition 0, number 978-1-137-52574-1, August.
    2. Isabel Schnabel & Hyun Song Shin, 2004. "Liquidity and Contagion: The Crisis of 1763," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(6), pages 929-968, December.
    3. Sims, Christopher A, 1994. "A Simple Model for Study of the Determination of the Price Level and the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(3), pages 381-399.
    4. Raphael A. Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost, 2020. "Rise of the Central Bank Digital Currencies: Drivers, Approaches and Technologies," CESifo Working Paper Series 8655, CESifo.
    5. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Daniel Sanches & Linda Schilling & Harald Uhlig, 2021. "Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Banking For All?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 225-242, July.
    6. Gregory, Allan W. & Hansen, Bruce E., 1996. "Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 99-126, January.
    7. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    8. Goetzmann, William N. & Rouwenhorst, K. Geert (ed.), 2005. "The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195175714, Decembrie.
    9. Carlos, Ann M. & Neal, Larry, 2011. "Amsterdam and London as financial centers in the eighteenth century1," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 21-46, April.
    10. Stefano Ugolini, 2017. "The Evolution of Central Banking: Theory and History," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-48525-0, December.
    11. van Zanden, Jan Luiten & van Leeuwen, Bas, 2012. "Persistent but not consistent: The growth of national income in Holland 1347–1807," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 119-130.
    12. Daniel R. Sanches, 2020. "Central Bank Digital Currency: Is It a Good Idea?," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 5(2), pages 9-15, June.
    13. Charles P. Kindleberger & Robert Z. Aliber, 2005. "Manias, Panics and Crashes," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, edition 0, number 978-0-230-62804-5, August.
    14. Morten L. Bech & Antoine Martin & James J. McAndrews, 2012. "Settlement liquidity and monetary policy implementation—lessons from the financial crisis," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 18(Mar), pages 3-20.
    15. Carlos, Ann M. & Neal, Larry, 2011. "Amsterdam and London as financial centers in the eighteenth century," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38799, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Goodhart, Charles A. E., 1998. "The two concepts of money: implications for the analysis of optimal currency areas," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 407-432, August.
    17. Curzio Giannini, 2011. "The Age of Central Banks," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14371, December.
    18. Robert Z. Aliber & Charles P. Kindleberger & Robert N. McCauley, 2023. "Manias, Panics, and Crashes," Springer Books, Springer, edition 8, number 978-3-031-16008-0, July.
    19. Peter Bernholz & Roland Vaubel (ed.), 2014. "Explaining Monetary and Financial Innovation," Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-319-06109-2, May.
    20. Hervo, F., 2008. "Recent developments in intraday liquidity in payment and settlement systems," Financial Stability Review, Banque de France, issue 11, pages 149-163, February.
    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. Auer, Raphael & Monnet, Cyril & Shin, Hyun Song, 2025. "Distributed ledgers and the governance of money," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    2. Auer, Raphael & Tercero-Lucas, David, 2022. "Distrust or speculation? The socioeconomic drivers of U.S. cryptocurrency investments," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Paweł Kowalewski, 2024. "Relationship between central banks’ activities and their profitability," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 55(3), pages 221-254.
    4. Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Zhang, Xin, 2023. "Private bank money vs central bank money: A historical lesson for CBDC introduction," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Raphael Auer & Rainer Boehme, 2021. "Central bank digital currency: the quest for minimally invasive technology," BIS Working Papers 948, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Raphael Auer & Codruta Boar & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost & Henry Holden & Andreas Wehrli, 2021. "CBDCs beyond borders: results from a survey of central banks," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 116.
    7. Ozili, Peterson K, 2024. "Nigeria cNGN stablecoin: everything you need to know about cNGN and eNaira CBDC," MPRA Paper 120801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Maarten van Oordt, 2022. "The Emerging Autonomy–Stability Choice for Stablecoins," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-015/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Raphael A. Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost, 2020. "Rise of the Central Bank Digital Currencies: Drivers, Approaches and Technologies," CESifo Working Paper Series 8655, CESifo.
    10. Tatiana A. Gorbacheva, 2022. "Stablecoins As a New Word in the Cryptocurrency Market," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 1, pages 126-139, February.
    11. Raphael Auer & Marc Farag & Ulf Lewrick & Lovrenc Orazem & Markus Zoss, 2022. "Banking in the shadow of Bitcoin? The institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies," BIS Working Papers 1013, Bank for International Settlements.
    12. Lyons, Richard K. & Viswanath-Natraj, Ganesh, 2023. "What keeps stablecoins stable?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    13. Douglas Arner & Raphael Auer & Jon Frost, 2020. "Stablecoins: potential, risks and regulation," BIS Working Papers 905, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Cyril Monnet & Hyun Song Shin & Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta & Raphael Auer & Tara Rice, 2022. "Central Bank Digital Currencies: Motives, Economic Implications, and the Research Frontier," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 697-721, August.
    15. Raphael Auer & Philipp Haene & Henry Holden, 2021. "Multi-CBDC arrangements and the future of cross-border payments," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 115.
    16. Raphael A. Auer, 2022. "Embedded Supervision: How to Build Regulation into Decentralised Finance," CESifo Working Paper Series 9771, CESifo.
    17. Michael Cary, 2024. "Herding and investor sentiment after the cryptocurrency crash: evidence from Twitter and natural language processing," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Jean Barthélemy & Paul Gardin & Benoit Nguyen, 2023. "Stablecoins and the Financing of the Real Economy," Working papers 908, Banque de France.
    19. Raphael Auer & Cyril Monnet & Hyun Song Shin, 2021. "Permissioned Distributed Ledgers and the Governance of Money," Diskussionsschriften dp2101, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.

    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. Wilko Bolt & Jon Frost & Hyun Song Shin & Peter Wierts, 2024. "The Bank of Amsterdam and the Limits of Fiat Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(12), pages 3919-3941.
    2. Markus Brunnermeier & Simon Rother & Isabel Schnabel & Itay Goldstein, 2020. "Asset Price Bubbles and Systemic Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(9), pages 4272-4317.
    3. Raphael Auer & Rainer Boehme, 2021. "Central bank digital currency: the quest for minimally invasive technology," BIS Working Papers 948, Bank for International Settlements.
    4. Bindseil, Ulrich & Winkler, Adalbert, 2012. "Dual liquidity crises under alternative monetary frameworks: a financial accounts perspective," Working Paper Series 1478, European Central Bank.
    5. Hossein Nabilou, 2020. "Testing the waters of the Rubicon: the European Central Bank and central bank digital currencies," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(4), pages 299-314, December.
    6. Winkler, Adalbert & Bindseil, Ulrich, 2012. "Dual liquidity crises under alternative monetary frameworks," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62032, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Giuseppe Mastromatteo & Lorenzo Esposito, 2015. "The Two Approaches to Money: Debt, Central Banks, and Functional Finance," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_855, Levy Economics Institute.
    8. Peter C.B. Phillips & Shu-Ping Shi & Jun Yu, 2011. "Testing for Multiple Bubbles," Working Papers 09-2011, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    9. Anthony J. Evans, 2016. "The unintended consequences of easy money: How access to finance impedes entrepreneurship," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 233-252, September.
    10. Paulo M.M. Rodrigues & Rita Fradique Lourenço, 2015. "House prices: bubbles, exuberance or something else? Evidence from euro area countries," Working Papers w201517, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    11. Hertrich Markus, 2019. "A Novel Housing Price Misalignment Indicator for Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 759-794, December.
    12. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2012. "Causes of banking crises: Deregulation, credit booms and asset bubbles, then and now," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 270-294.
    13. Raghuram Rajan & Rodney Ramcharan, 2015. "The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1439-1477, April.
    14. Engelbert Stockhammer & Paul Ramskogler, 2009. "Post-Keynesian economics How to move forward," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 6(2), pages 227-246.
    15. Christensen, Bent Jesper & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard & Zhu, Jie, 2015. "The impact of financial crises on the risk–return tradeoff and the leverage effect," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 407-418.
    16. Farla, Kristine, 2012. "Institutions and credit," MERIT Working Papers 2012-038, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Schwäbe, Carsten, 2013. "Unkonventionelle Geldpolitik: Warum die Europäische Zentralbank ihre Unabhängigkeit nicht verloren hat," CIW Discussion Papers 3/2013, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    18. Qin, Jie, 2015. "A model of regret, investor behavior, and market turbulence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 150-174.
    19. Corgnet, Brice & Hernán-González, Roberto & Kujal, Praveen, 2020. "On booms that never bust: Ambiguity in experimental asset markets with bubbles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    20. Richard Nielsen, 2013. "Whistle-Blowing Methods for Navigating Within and Helping Reform Regulatory Institutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 385-395, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    stablecoins; crypto-assets; central banks; money.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bis:biswps:902. 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: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    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.