How Stablecoins Could Destabilise Southeast Asian Economies
For all the recent excitement around stablecoins, they bring significant risks that warrant proactive policy responses.
Earlier this month in Singapore, a record 25,000 attended Token2049, the world’s largest crypto conference. A key theme was that crypto — particularly through stablecoins — is going mainstream as evidenced by the recent “historic” US stablecoin bill. Stablecoins (cryptocurrencies pegged 1:1 to fiat currency) are hailed as crypto’s “killer app,” drastically lowering the time and cost of global payments. For crypto evangelists like former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, their potential is far greater. At Token2049, he asserted that stablecoins are not merely “plumbing,” rather, “[t]hey are the…
