John Authers, Columnist

Has the Horse Already Bolted the Stablecoin?

The warning is of ‘systemic threat.’ The talk is of mitigation and fixing problems later.

Innovation is great, until the next crisis.

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

To get John Authers’ newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here.

The dawn of the stablecoin era, ushered in by the US GENIUS Act, carries the promise and peril of earlier financial innovations, from credit cards to derivatives. Anchored to fiat currencies and backed by liquid assets such as Treasuries, stablecoins are the crypto world’s closest approach to calm. To some, it’s a revolution in monetary efficiency; to others, every leap in finance brings its own risks. That has grown ever more apparent at this week’s annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.