[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) defined stablecoins as having a structure closer to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) than to money and stressed the need for global regulatory coordination.

A Reuters report cited by blockchain outlet The Block Crypto on Sunday said the BIS warned that if regulatory frameworks diverge by country, it could lead to market fragmentation and regulatory arbitrage.

The warning comes as the supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins grows rapidly. Circulating dollar-pegged tokens have now surpassed $300 billion. Tether's USDT has a market value of about $186 billion, and Circle's USDC about $78.8 billion. The two issuers account for about 85 percent of total circulation.

BIS General Manager Pablo Hernandez de Cos (파블로 에르난데스 데 코스) said this market structure is accompanied by frictions in the redemption process and frequent price dislocations. "Stablecoins are closer to securities than to money," he said, adding that for now they function more like ETFs than traditional means of payment. Even if stablecoins nominally claim a one-to-one peg, they do not fully show money-like stability in actual trading and redemption, he said.

He also raised policy concerns. Stablecoins could weaken the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy, increase financial market stress and hinder efforts to block illicit funds, he said. "If countries' regulations vary, it could cause severe market fragmentation or lead to harmful regulatory arbitrage," Hernandez de Cos said.

The BIS also cited the risk that large-scale redemptions could transmit shocks to other markets. It said that if there are large redemption demands for stablecoins, the shock could spread to broader financial markets. It added that such risks could be reduced if issuers are given safeguards akin to deposit insurance or access to central bank liquidity support facilities.

Whether stablecoins should pay interest remains a matter of debate. Hernandez de Cos said that even when interest rates are high, if stablecoin holdings do not earn interest, it is unlikely that funds will shift in large numbers from bank deposits to stablecoins. He added that this view is possible only on the assumption that a ban on paying interest on stablecoins is actually enforced.

Separate from the warning, momentum to expand real-world use of stablecoins continues. A YouGov survey conducted in February by payments firm BVNK with Coinbase and Artemis of 4,658 adults in 15 countries found 54 percent of respondents said they had held stablecoins in the past 12 months. Another 56 percent said they would be willing to buy more. For freelancers and marketplace sellers, payments received in stablecoins accounted for about 35 percent of annual income, it found.

Policymakers are also watching monetary dominance issues. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure (롤랑 레스퀴르) said he was not satisfied that the euro-pegged stablecoin market is excessively small compared with the dollar-pegged market, and urged Europe's banking sector to expand euro-denominated tokens and tokenised deposits.

The industry is also discussing the possibility of yuan-pegged stablecoins. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire (제레미 얼레어) recently called it a "huge opportunity" and mentioned that China could launch related products within 3 to 5 years. Chinese authorities currently do not allow the issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins offshore without regulatory approval.

As the stablecoin market expands into payments and remittances, the BIS sees that system risk could increase if issuer concentration, redemption structures and cross-country regulatory differences combine. The focus of future discussions is expected to be whether to view stablecoins as a separate means of payment or regulate them as assets closer to investment products.