Tobias Adrian, Director of the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department, pointed to a specific possibility in a recent speech.19 One way of addressing the risks associated with stablecoins would be to provide their suppliers with access to reserve accounts at central banks, and at the same time to entrust those central banks with the task of supervising stablecoin providers as well as wallet providers and distributors.
This, Mr Adrian says, would actually create “synthetic central bank digital currency”, as users could, ultimately, hold and transact in a central bank liability. But this would mean that the risks usually associated with digital central bank currencies might also emerge with stablecoins.