As stablecoins grow in scale and ambition, what ensures that a yen paid via stablecoin is worth the same as a yen in a bank account? Bank of Japan (BoJ) Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino explored that question in a speech at the Japan Society of Monetary Economics, centering his remarks on what central bankers call the “singleness of money.”
Singleness refers to the principle that different forms of money, whether cash, bank deposits or digital payment instruments, are interchangeable at par without anyone needing to assess the creditworthiness of the issuer. As Himino put it, when a shop receives a bank transfer, it never needs to ask questions about the value of the sender’s bank deposits.
This works today because bank transfers ultimately settle through central bank reserves. The central bank’s settlement function, together with regulation, supervision, deposit insurance and the lender of last resort, ensures that a deposit at Bank A is worth the same as a deposit at Credit Union B. Stablecoins bypass that entire mechanism.
Himino outlined two key risk scenarios. If multiple stablecoins circulate, bad news about one issuer could cause its coins to slip from par, and the resulting doubt about universal acceptability could become self-fulfilling. If a single stablecoin dominates, network effects protect its value, but the result is a private firm monopolistically controlling critical economic infrastructure. At a minimum, such a firm would need governance comparable to a central bank’s, he suggested.
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