Regulators mull safeguards for stablecoin paymentsReuters, LONDONStablecoins would have to comply with the same safeguards as their more traditional competitors in payments, regulators said yesterday, as authorities get to grips with a rapidly evolving sector. Facebook Inc’s move in 2019 to introduce its own stablecoin — diem, then known as libra — raised concerns among governments and central banks that a major payments competitor could emerge overnight with little regulation. Since then, diem has radically scaled back its ambitions and plans to launch a US dollar stablecoin. Tether, the largest stablecoin, has a market capitalization of about US$68 billion versus just US$15 billion a year ago. The value of circulating USD coin, another major stablecoin, has also jumped dramatically to more than US$30 billion from just US$2.7 billion a year ago, CoinMarketCap data showed.

Source: Taipei Times October 06, 2021 06:56 UTC