The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has issued a warning about stablecoins, stating that they must preserve trust in money as the next generation of the monetary and financial system is built. According to the BIS's special chapter in its 2026 Annual Economic Report, tokenisation could improve payments and financial intermediation if introduced within existing institutional, legal, and supervisory structures.
The report defines tokenisation as the digital representation of assets on programmable platforms and says it could create new forms of programmable payments. However, it warns that the benefits of innovation depend on preserving confidence in the value and convertibility of money.
The BIS argues that stablecoins show some promise but do not yet meet the essential tests of money, particularly singleness, which means different forms of money can be redeemed exactly at par against central bank money. The report also points out weaknesses linked to circulation on public, permissionless blockchains, which can undermine resilience against financial crime and undermine redeemability and interoperability across different ledgers.