U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Stephan Miran, the newest member of the board of governors after his recent confirmation, pointed a spotlight on stablecoins and the potential that their explosive growth — especially by foreign users — will have heavy consequences for monetary policy.
“Stablecoins may become a multitrillion dollar elephant in the room for central bankers,” Miran said in a Friday speech in New York. He said that Fed staff projects “uptake reaching between $1 trillion and $3 trillion by the end of the decade.”
“In total, under $7 trillion in Treasury bills are outstanding today,” he said. “If these forecasts prove accurate, the magnitude of additional demand from stablecoins will be too large to ignore.
Miran, who was an economic official in President Donald Trump’s administration before he joined the Fed, said he thinks it’s unlikely that stablecoins will be the drain on U.S. bank deposits that the bankers are keenly concerned about, arguing that the new stablecoin law — the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS) Act — doesn’t directly allow for yield.
“I therefore expect most demand for stablecoins to come from locales unable to access dollar-denominated saving instruments, boosting demand for dollar assets,” he said at the BCVC Summit 2025.
“If a global stablecoin glut is driven by flows out of foreign currencies and into the U.S. dollar, it will, all else equal, make the dollar stronger,” Miran said. “Depending on the strength of this effect relative to other forces affecting the Fed’s price-stability and maximum-employment mandates, that might be something that monetary policy reacts to.”
Stablecoins are the dollar-tied tokens that the crypto sector relies on as a steady component of trades and contracts, and their issuers — such as Tether with its USDT and Circle with its USDC — are set to be newly regulated under the GENIUS Act, which was the first major crypto law established in the U.S.
Miran, who remains on leave from his White House post as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, contended that the U.S. financial infrastructure could “use a reboot,” suggesting that the dollar-backed tokens could provide it.
“Stablecoins may well lead the way on this front, facilitating dollar holdings and payments domestically and abroad,” he said.