BIS calls for globally coordinated stablecoin regulation: warns that Tether and Circle account for 85% of those showing “security-like characteristics”

According to a Reuters report, officials at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issued yet another call this week: global coordination on stablecoin regulation is “critical” to prevent a serious split in the market. Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), added that progress on international stablecoin standards has “clearly slowed” over the past year, and the coordination gaps among supervisory bodies are widening.

BIS’s Three Major Concerns About Stablecoins

In a recent report, BIS said stablecoins currently present three major risks: first, cross-border flows move too fast, so regulations in any single jurisdiction cannot handle the issue on its own; second, stablecoins with a global market value of $315 billion are highly concentrated—Tether and Circle together account for 85%, and this kind of single-point concentration is itself a systemic risk; third, the structural characteristics of these two major stablecoins are “more like securities than currency”—their reserve assets are mostly interest-bearing assets such as short-term government bonds, commercial paper, and cash, and they retain the interest rather than distributing it to holders.

BIS’s wording carries substantial weight—if the term “securities” is formally adopted by regulators in multiple countries as the basis for classification, Tether and Circle face not only financial supervision, but also a full set of securities regulations, including securities issuance, investor suitability, and disclosure obligations. This characterization risk had previously been discussed in the market after Circle suffered a compliance vulnerability incident exposed by ZachXBT involving $420 million, and BIS’s statement elevates it into the official position of international supervisory authorities.

Technology Neutrality and Fair Competition

BIS emphasized that the “technology neutrality” principle should not be relaxed because of the innovative nature of stablecoins. The payment and value-storage functions provided by stablecoins are economically the same as those of traditional bank deposits or e-money, so regulatory standards should not be given different treatment simply because the underlying technology is blockchain. If this principle is adopted by countries, it will reduce the current compliance-cost advantage that stablecoins have relative to bank services.

Compared across the Asia-Pacific region: Japan has already brought crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, Hong Kong is pushing a cross-border payment framework for RMB stablecoins, and Taiwan is advancing a VASP licensing regime through a draft Virtual Assets Service Act. If these regions coordinate consistently with BIS, they will form a more effective cross-border stablecoin regulatory network.

BIS’s Proposed Alternative Solution: A Unified Ledger

BIS is not simply opposed to tokenized fiat currencies; it is proposing an alternative architecture—the “Unified Ledger.” This concept integrates central bank money (CBDC), commercial bank deposits (tokenized deposits), and government bonds into a single technology platform. It argues, based on the classic principle of “sound money,” to build the next-generation tokenized financial system. The core difference between this framework and the current model used by Tether and Circle is that it is led by central banks or state-authorized institutions rather than the private sector.

BIS is calling on central banks and public institutions to “pave the way for this next phase”—meaning that the digital path of the international monetary system may be converging toward a “central-bank-led” direction rather than “private-sector stablecoins.” For existing players such as Tether and Circle, this is a structural challenge to their long-term business models.

Practical Implications for Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific Market

For Taiwan’s virtual asset industry players and investors, three possible impacts of BIS’s statement are: first, the direction in which Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) VASP regulations are formulated may be closer to BIS and FSB standards rather than independently following U.S. or Japan templates; second, if local VASP providers (such as BitoPro, MAX, HOYA BIT, XREX, TWEX) provide stablecoin-related services in the future, compliance requirements may refer to securities-industry standards; third, for cross-border crypto businesses that use USDT and USDC as their main settlement tools, regulatory uncertainty will continue to rise.

Key points to watch next: whether the FSB can release specific cross-border stablecoin regulatory standards in the second half of 2026, whether BIS and major central banks (Fed, ECB, BoJ, PBoC, FSC) enter a coordination-meeting stage, and whether Tether and Circle proactively propose compliance upgrade plans. 2026 is very likely to become the dividing line between stablecoins moving from “technological innovation” to “securitized regulation.”

This article: BIS calls for global coordination on stablecoin regulation, warning that Tether and Circle, which account for 85%, show “securities-like characteristics”—first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.