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Banks Hold a Lever Over Stablecoin Adoption, BIS Economists Say
A new working paper by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found that stablecoin growth slows when U.S. banks raise deposit rates. The study, using weekly U.S. data from January 2019 through June 2025, showed that stablecoin market capitalization grew by about 15% over a typical 10-week span. A one-basis-point bump in deposit rates cut that to roughly 12% under the authors' baseline estimate. The paper concludes that banks retain some influence over the pace of stablecoin adoption through deposit pricing, with Circle’s USDC being the most sensitive to changes in deposit rates.