#equality

At the height of what proved his fleeting power, the founder of a now-evaporated stablecoin said, “I never debate the poor.”  And, perhaps he doesn’t have to – his was not among tall the fiat-currency wallets emptied in the course of this high-flying venture.  Those were mostly in the virtual pockets of young and often minority households.  Regardless, this statement is stark evidence of the difference between the social-welfare obligations demanded of banks and the get-it-while-you-can ethos embodied by this entrepreneur, Elon Musk, and all their acolytes.  We demand much of banks because they take other people’s money.  The same obligations should bind stablecoins because they also take other people’s money and thus need to be governed not just for safety and soundness, but also for equality and equity.

It might be argued that a community-service rationale isn’t warranted for crypto-currency because stablecoin issuers are not intermediaries – indeed, this was a defense against new rules laid out at a recent hearing and it’s the rationale behind the Toomey draft bill to craft a federal stablecoin construct, which eschews most prudential and any community obligations for nonbank stablecoin issuers.

Leaving aside the competitive inequity of a two-tier regulatory framework for the same business, there are three compelling public-welfare arguments for subjecting stablecoins and many other virtual currencies to critical components of bank regulation even if they don’t emulate every aspect of a full-service bank.

First, taking money from other people and promising that they can get it back …