Stablecoins as private money: A policy agenda

Stablecoins are rapidly expanding as money-like assets for payments, trading, settlement, and cross-border transfer. In response, policymakers are moving quickly to develop new regulatory frameworks to safeguard the monetary and financial system. This article develops a forward-looking, research-based policy agenda for stablecoins, drawing on monetary theory, recent market developments (including stress events), our own analytical framework, and the broader academic literature. In our view, a world in which stablecoins reach scale requires a coherent package of measures: tools to preserve financial stability and resilience against liquidity crises; protections for monetary sovereignty and the singleness of money; rules on stablecoin remuneration; constraints on platform market power alongside interoperability requirements; robust financial-integrity rules; and international coordination to limit regulatory arbitrage and close cross-border loopholes such as multi-issuer structures. We also highlight several areas that require further evaluation prior to policy adoption, including whether (and under what conditions) a public liquidity backstop for systemic issuers or central-bank reserve access is warranted, as well as modernization pathways within the traditional monetary system. We benchmark our agenda against the U.S. GENIUS Act and the EU's MiCA and provide a cross-jurisdictional comparison.