Coinbase slammed BIS for arguing that stablecoins fall short as money while judging them against a cleaner standard than traditional banking.
Crypto exchange Coinbase has strongly criticized the Bank for International Settlements’ assertion that stablecoins fail as money, with Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer at Coinbase, stating that BIS has “idealized monetary system while holding the incumbent system to its real-world performance.”
In a June 28 blog post, Shirzad argued that stablecoins are already moving beyond crypto trading. He particularly pointed to stablecoin settlement at Visa and Mastercard and Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge.
For context, BIS claimed the main use cases of stablecoins so far have been for crypto trading and, to a lesser extent, as offshore stores of value.
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BIS Stablecoin Criticism Challenged
Shirzad also pushed back on the BIS claim that stablecoins fail the “singleness” of money because they may not always trade perfectly at par. Traditional finance, Shirzad writes, already breaks that standard through ATM fees, interchange costs and correspondent-banking charges:
“Stablecoins deserve the same plumbing that produces par, rather than being faulted for the absence of access they have never been granted.”
The Coinbase chief policy officer also dismissed the allegation that stablecoins are inadequately regulated, saying that stablecoins are now covered through several regulatory frameworks, including reserve capital requirements.
The real policy question, as Shirzad claims, has now shifted from whether stablecoins can function as money to how they should be regulated, adding that “the U.S. and UK have the better read on it.”
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