IMF Warns: Fragmented Stablecoin Rules Create “Roadblocks” – New Guidelines Released
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday launched a brand new world evaluation of the stablecoin market, warning that fragmented regulatory frameworks throughout international locations are actually creating structural “roadblocks” that threaten monetary stability, weaken oversight, and sluggish the event of cross-border funds.
In its report titled “Understanding Stablecoins,” the IMF reviewed how main economies, together with the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Japan, regulate stablecoins and located that nationwide approaches stay broadly inconsistent.
While some international locations deal with stablecoins as securities, others regulate them as cost devices, allow solely bank-issued tokens, or depart giant elements of the market unregulated.
Stablecoins Are Moving Faster Than Regulators Can Track, IMF Warns
The IMF stated this regulatory patchwork permits stablecoins to maneuver throughout borders quicker than oversight can observe.
Issuers can function from flippantly regulated jurisdictions whereas serving customers in stricter markets, limiting authorities’ means to observe reserves, redemptions, liquidity administration, and anti-money laundering controls.
The fund warned that this creates regulatory arbitrage and weakens world supervision.
The report additionally pointed to technical fragmentation. Stablecoins more and more function throughout totally different blockchains and exchanges that aren’t all the time interoperable.
According to the IMF, this lack of coordination raises transaction prices, slows market growth, and creates limitations to environment friendly world funds.
Differences in nationwide regulatory remedy additional complicate cross-border utilization and settlement.
Stablecoins stay dominated by U.S. dollar-denominated tokens. The IMF stated the worldwide stablecoin market is now price greater than $300 billion. Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC make up nearly all of that provide. About 40% of USDC’s reserves are held in short-term U.S. treasuries, whereas roughly 75% of USDT’s reserves are in short-term treasuries, with one other 5% held in Bitcoin.
The focus of reserves in authorities debt markets hyperlinks stablecoins on to conventional monetary programs
Widespread use of foreign-currency stablecoins can weaken home financial management, decrease demand for native forex, and speed up digital dollarization. Stablecoins additionally make it simpler to bypass capital controls by way of unhosted wallets and offshore platforms.
In addition to financial issues, the fund cited broader monetary stability issues. Large-scale redemptions may power fast gross sales of Treasury payments and repo belongings, doubtlessly disrupting short-term funding markets which might be important for financial coverage transmission.
The IMF additionally famous that the rising interconnection between stablecoin issuers, banks, custodians, crypto exchanges, and funds additionally will increase the danger of contagion spreading from digital markets into the broader monetary system.
IMF Urges Unified Stablecoin Regulation as Cross-Border Risks Grow
To handle these dangers, the IMF launched new world coverage pointers supposed to scale back fragmentation. It referred to as for harmonized definitions of stablecoins, constant guidelines for reserve belongings, and shared cross-border monitoring frameworks.
The fund stated issuers needs to be topic to the precept of “similar exercise, similar threat, similar regulation,” no matter whether or not the issuer is a financial institution, fintech firm, or crypto platform.
The IMF additionally stated stablecoins needs to be backed solely by high-quality liquid belongings equivalent to short-term authorities securities, with strict limits on dangerous holdings. Issuers should assure full one-to-one redemption at par, on demand, always.
Strong worldwide coordination on anti-money laundering enforcement, licensing, and supervision of enormous world stablecoin preparations was additionally included within the new steering.
The IMF’s warning comes as regulatory stress is rising worldwide. In Europe, the European Central Bank recently warned that stablecoins, regardless of their small footprint within the euro space, now pose spillover dangers resulting from their rising ties to U.S. Treasury markets.
The ECB warns that stablecoins are rising quick, now topping $280B, with rising spillover dangers as USDT and USDC dominate 90% of the market. #Stablecoins #ECBhttps://t.co/ef16HZzqYL
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) November 24, 2025
The European Systemic Risk Board has also called for pressing safeguards in opposition to cross-border stablecoin constructions working underneath the EU’s MiCA framework.
In China, the central bank has described stablecoins as a threat to monetary stability and financial sovereignty, whereas the Bank of England and Basel regulators are reassessing how banks should hold capital in opposition to stablecoin publicity as utilization expands.
The IMF concluded that with out constant world regulation, stablecoins may bypass nationwide safeguards, destabilize weak economies, and transmit monetary shocks throughout borders at high velocity.
The submit IMF Warns: Fragmented Stablecoin Rules Create “Roadblocks” – New Guidelines Released appeared first on Cryptonews.
