BIS Chief De Cos Questions Stablecoin Credibility as Tether (USDT) Dominates $308B Market

De Cos’s Four Tests of Money

Bank for International Settlements (BIS) general manager Pablo Hernández de Cos used an August 28 appearance at the Jackson Hole economic policy symposium to deliver a blunt verdict: stablecoins still cannot serve as credible money at scale, and tokenized deposits — not on-chain dollar tokens — should carry the bulk of everyday payments. Speaking to central bankers gathered for the Kansas City Fed’s annual retreat, the Basel-based official argued that stablecoins lack the fundamental properties of money, a direct challenge to an asset class that has spent much of this year marketing itself as the future of digital payments. He framed the concern in sovereignty terms as well, warning that the spread of dollar-pegged tokens is raising “digital dollarization” anxieties in some jurisdictions. De Cos built the critique around four properties he says stablecoins cannot guarantee: redemption at par, elasticity, interoperability and financial integrity. In practice, issuers cannot promise one-to-one redemption the way bank deposits can, supply does not expand or contract with real economic activity, moving value across chains — whether networks running delegated proof-of-stake or other designs — remains inefficient, and self-custodied wallets complicate anti-money-laundering enforcement compared with traditional banking. His preferred fix is tokenized deposits: account-based bank liabilities settled through central-bank reserves that preserve the “singleness” of money. The remarks land on a sector that keeps growing regardless — global stablecoin supply has climbed to $308 billion, up more than 14% year over year even after retreating from a May peak, with Tether (USDT) accounting for roughly 60% of the total. Advocates point to faster settlement and lower fees than traditional rails, including flows that route through venues such as decentralized exchange Uniswap, but de Cos said regulators will weigh those benefits against strict monetary-integrity standards before approving wider use. The speech came on a choppy day for crypto: bitcoin had slipped below the $80,000 mark, with hawkish inflation messaging from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh lifting short-term Treasury yields — and de Cos separately noted that steering stablecoin reserves into US government debt lowers borrowing costs, tying the “what is money” debate directly to how Washington funds itself.

53% Reject Crypto in Retirement Plans

Basel’s skepticism has a retail mirror in the United States. A new survey from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) — the primary-source dataset we reviewed — finds that 53% of American adults oppose employers adding cryptocurrency to workplace 401(k)-style plans, and 77% classify crypto as a high-risk asset. The poll of 1,203 adults aged 25 and older was fielded from October 24 to November 14, 2025, before the current political fight over retirement-account access fully crystallized. The opposition sits inside a broader anxiety: 80% of respondents believe the country faces a serious retirement crisis, up from 67% in the 2020 edition of the survey, and 61% say they are deeply worried about achieving financial security after they stop working. Respondents blamed persistent inflation (73%) and volatile financial markets (62%), while 76% fear Social Security benefits will be cut if Congress fails to act; 68% say preparing for retirement has grown harder as prices rise and wages stagnate. The same survey mapped attitudes toward AI-driven personal finance: 63% have used AI tools, yet 61% have never applied them to budgeting, investing or retirement planning, and 45% are uncomfortable with AI-generated financial advice. Interest clusters around AI as an assistant rather than a decision-maker — budgeting (38%), investing support (34%), retirement preparation (32%) and tax planning (24%) — with younger respondents noticeably more receptive. The findings arrive as the 401(k) debate turns openly political. Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has written to acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling demanding withdrawal of a draft rule that would let retirement plans hold crypto, private equity and commodities such as platinum, created under a Trump executive order offering a “safe harbor” from fiduciary liability. Sonderling has countered that the draft still requires prudent evaluation of any asset, but Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have since joined the protest. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

A Trust Deficit on Both Fronts

Read together, the two data points describe a policy stack moving faster than the trust beneath it. The NIRS survey’s own topline — 77% of savers calling crypto high-risk — is a primary-source reading COINOTAG weighs heavily: it measures the exact population the 401(k) draft rule would expose to digital-asset risk, and it says no. Meanwhile the BIS, the institution whose standards central banks actually follow, is steering the payments future toward tokenized deposits instead. Adoption is still compounding — USDT’s roughly 60% share of a $308 billion market proves demand exists — but with blockchain oracles and DeFi rails still fighting for regulatory legitimacy, Washington’s retirement gamble looks timed against, not with, public and institutional confidence.