IMF Releases Principles for Overseeing Stablecoin Risks Beyond Formal Rules

The IMF just dropped a new playbook for regulators—and it’s all about looking past the rulebook.

Beyond the Black and White

Forget just checking boxes. The International Monetary Fund’s latest framework pushes supervisors to see past formal compliance. It’s a call to scrutinize the real-world mechanics—liquidity backstops, redemption pressures, operational resilience—that don’t always fit neatly into a regulation. Think of it as moving from a checklist to a crystal ball.

Principles Over Prescriptions

The guidance avoids hard rules, opting instead for core principles. It champions proactive supervision, cross-border coordination, and a focus on the economic substance of stablecoin arrangements. The goal? To spot the cracks in the foundation before the whole structure shakes—because in crypto, the quakes come fast.

A Nod to the Inevitable

This isn’t just risk aversion; it’s an implicit acknowledgment that stablecoins are becoming too systemic to ignore. The framework essentially tells traditional finance watchdogs: get comfortable in the digital asset sandbox, or get left behind while the market builds its own castle.

The bottom line? The guardians of global finance are finally trying to learn the language of the decentralized world. Let’s see if they can keep up without trying to rewrite its grammar—a classic move from an industry that loves to regulate what it once failed to innovate.

Is the expansion of stablecoins driving market inefficiencies and risks?

The IMF said that the proliferation of new stablecoins across different blockchains and exchanges raises concerns about inefficiencies stemming from a potential lack of interoperability. The organization noted that this growth can create disparities and obstacles among countries due to varying regulatory frameworks and transactional hurdles.

Although regulation of stablecoins helps authorities address [certain] risks, strong macro-policies and robust institutions […] should be the first line of defense […] International coordination remains key to solving these issues.

IMF

According to the report, the largest stablecoins by market capitalization, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, were “backed mostly” by short-term US Treasuries, reverse repo collateralized with US Treasuries, and bank deposits. Forty percent of USDC’s reserves and approximately 75% of USDt’s reserves consisted of short-term US Treasuries, with Tether’s stablecoin also holding 5% of its reserves in Bitcoin.

The vast majority of stablecoins worldwide include coins pegged to the US dollar. However, a small number of issuers have denominated their offerings in different currencies, such as the euro. As of December, the total market exceeds $300 billion.

US GENIUS Act and EU MiCA create divergent stablecoin frameworks

Following the signing of the GENIUS Act into law by US President Donald TRUMP in July, regulators have been moving to establish a comprehensive framework for payment stablecoins in the United States. The law imposes strict reserve requirements, bans yield-bearing stablecoins, and formally integrates stablecoin issuers into the US financial system.

A new report from blockchain security auditor CertiK indicates that America’s new approach to stablecoin regulation is reshaping global liquidity flows and driving a sharp structural split with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime, effectively creating separate US and EU stablecoin liquidity pools.

According to the report, the US digital asset market entered a new phase of regulatory clarity in 2025, with federal legislation and administrative reforms now broadly aligned on how digital assets are issued, traded, and custodied.

While the framework offers long-awaited regulatory certainty for US issuers, the report warns that it also deepens the global divide with the EU’s MiCA regime, creating a separate US liquidity pool and effectively fragmenting the global stablecoin market.

For this reason, CertiK anticipates that stablecoin liquidity will become highly segmented by jurisdiction, which will give rise to new cross-border settlement issues and potentially lead to regional stablecoin arbitrage.

Despite the MiCA regime of the European Union following the US GENIUS Act’s requirement for full redemption at par and prohibition on yield for stablecoins, it has met resistance due to the addition of banking concentration risk, as the rules mandate a substantial fraction of issuer reserves to be held within EU-based banks. 

Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, cautioned that such a structure could lead to “systemic risks” for issuers, as under the fractional reserve system, banks typically lend out a sizable portion of their deposits.

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