De Cos said these features make the tokens behave more like ETFs. At the same time, he argued they still carry run and contagion risks because issuers hold short-term government debt and bank deposits as reserve assets.

The Contagion Path: Reserve Sales, Funding Markets, and Bank Deposit Stress

The BIS framing focused on the second-order effects of redemptions, not just the optics of a de-peg. In a stress episode, De Cos warned, rapid outflows could force sales of reserve assets into already strained markets or transmit funding pressure to banks.

That channel runs through liquidity transformation, where redeemable liabilities are backed by assets that can become less liquid in a rush. The European Central Bank has drawn a related comparison between euro stablecoins and tokenized money market funds, noting both face run risk but operate under different transparency, liquidity management, and regulatory regimes that shape how stress transmits into funding markets.

De Cos also flagged compliance perimeter risk. He said public, permissionless blockchains and unhosted wallets place a significant share of stablecoin activity outside conventional AML/CFT controls, increasing illicit-use risk unless bespoke safeguards are implemented at on- and off-ramps. The size of that “significant share” was not quantified.

Signals Traders Should Track as Stablecoin Rules Tighten

Europe is already testing the boundary of stablecoin payments sovereignty. Earlier in April, Bank of France First Deputy Governor Denis Beau urged the EU to go beyond the original MiCA text by limiting non-euro stablecoins in everyday payments and tightening rules around issuing the same coin inside versus outside the bloc to reduce regulatory arbitrage during stress.

The UK is moving on a parallel track. In March 2026, members of the House of Lords questioned Coinbase on whether stablecoins could drain commercial bank deposits, trigger Silicon Valley Bank-style runs, and facilitate crime as the government finalizes a bespoke regime for fiat-backed tokens.

Traders should also watch for any BIS or central-bank guidance that puts numbers on the narrative, including thresholds for when stablecoins “rival traditional money” and details on the referenced de-peg “episodes.” On the alternative-rails side, regulated-bank pilots are a live signal. UBS and several Swiss peers launched a franc stablecoin pilot in a sandbox on April 8 to explore blockchain-based franc payments inside a regulated framework.

The Real Trade Is Regulatory Friction in Dollar Liquidity Rails

I read the BIS message as an attempt to reclassify the mental model: USDT and USDC are being treated less like neutral payment cash and more like investment-like instruments with redemption frictions and market-price behavior that can gap under stress. That reframing strengthens the case for harmonized cross-border rules, because it shifts the debate from consumer protection to systemic plumbing.

The threshold that matters is whether policymakers translate the run-risk channel into tighter on- and off-ramp requirements rather than headline bans. If limits on non-domestic stablecoin payments, stricter inside-versus-outside issuance rules, and bespoke AML/CFT safeguards start landing in the EU and UK, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, with real consequences for how dollar liquidity moves across exchanges and permissionless rails.

Sources

• Cointelegraph