Dollarisation and monetary control: what lessons for the rise of stablecoins?

by Boris Hofmann, Aaron Mehrotra, Jan Paulick The emergence of stablecoins has created a new channel to access US dollar liquidity in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), similar to the historical role of foreign currency deposits, or “deposit dollarisation”. This has raised concerns about the possible implications for monetary control in EMDEs. Drawing on data on foreign currency deposits and dollar-pegged stablecoin inflows for more than 130 economies, we compare the dynamics and drivers of “stablecoin dollarisation” with those of conventional deposit dollarisation.