Viewpoint: China already has some form of "quasi-stablecoin" assets, so there is no need to "myth" or "superstitious" about stablecoins

PANews July 19 news, according to Caixin.com, Guan Tao, global chief economist of BOC Securities, said at a recent online seminar of the China Macroeconomic Forum (CMF) that the US dollar stablecoin is not the legal tender of the United States and lacks the guarantee of sovereign credit. For stablecoins, we can take a "wait-and-see" attitude, and there is no need to rush, and there is no need to "myth" or "superstitious" stablecoins. We should maintain the strategic determination to develop digital currency and promote the internationalization of the RMB. Guan Tao believes that China actually already has formal "quasi-stablecoin" assets. For example, the Hong Kong dollar is issued by the three local note-issuing banks in accordance with the peg system of 1 US dollar: 7.8 Hong Kong dollars, but unlike many stablecoins, even the Hong Kong dollars issued by different note-issuing banks are interoperable and indistinguishable. In addition, the customer funds of third-party payments such as WeChat and Alipay are fully entrusted to the People's Bank of China, which is also similar to the 1:1 stablecoin issuance. In reality, payment settlement still uses RMB.

Guan Tao further pointed out that as stablecoins pegged to legal tender are increasingly regarded as "substitutes for legal tender" and are brought under regulation, their original advantages will actually be weakened. If stablecoins are regarded as real currencies, then currency, as a general equivalent, will inevitably move towards oligopoly, and most issuers of stablecoins will find it difficult to survive or make money.