Stablecoins Pose No Near-Term Threat to Banks, Moody’s Analyst Says

Stablecoins are mostly backed by reserves of fiat assets such as the U.S. dollar and are used primarily for cross-border payments and onchain finance. If they were allowed to offer yields, they could draw deposits away from banks and erode a key source of lending funds. Abhi Srivastava, vice president in the digital economy unit at Moody’s Investors Service, said the U.S. payments system is already fast, inexpensive and reliable. With regulations also prohibiting stablecoins from paying interest, there is limited incentive for them to replace bank deposits in the near term.

Cointelegraph reported on April 19, 2026, that Srivastava said the stablecoin market had surpassed $300 billion by the end of 2025. Over the longer term, the expansion of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, could trigger deposit outflows and constrain bank lending. The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated that banning yield-bearing stablecoins would add just $2.1 billion in lending, or 0.02%. The CLARITY Act remains stalled in Congress amid disputes over its interest provisions.