IMF Chief: Stablecoins Could Lower Cross-Border Payment Costs but May Threaten Emerging Market Monetary Sovereignty

August 30 news, IMF Managing Director Georgieva said at the Jackson Hole symposium that stablecoins and tokenization could enhance global financial liquidity, making large-scale cross-border payments cheaper and faster; however, stablecoins could also intensify currency substitution, capital flows, and exchange rate volatility, and weaken capital controls and monetary sovereignty. Dollar-backed stablecoins could expand the dollar's global network effects and marginally reduce U.S. financing costs, but they cannot substitute for fiscal discipline. At this year's Jackson Hole global central bank symposium, three clear institutional divergences have emerged: the BIS leans more toward "marginalizing stablecoins, with tokenized deposits in the middle"; the ECB leans more toward "putting central bank money on-chain"; and the IMF more readily acknowledges the real-world efficiency of stablecoins in cross-border payments, while focusing key risks on emerging market currency substitution and capital flows. This carries more policy implications than simply being "for or against stablecoins."