The total market capitalization of stablecoins has reached a new all-time high of $322 billion, surpassing the foreign exchange reserves of 95 countries.

BlockBeats News, May 26th, according to Coindesk, the global stablecoin total market capitalization has surpassed $322 billion, reaching a historical high. This scale has exceeded the official foreign exchange reserves of emerging economies such as Poland, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as developed economies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates. Currently, only 14 economies including China, Japan, Russia, India, Taiwan, and Germany hold foreign exchange reserves higher than the total market capitalization of stablecoins.

Stablecoins have become the core pricing and settlement medium for cryptocurrency asset trading, allowing users to hedge against cryptocurrency price volatility without the need to frequently convert to fiat currency. In decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, stablecoins play a fundamental settlement function; in the field of cross-border payments, leveraging their low-cost and high-efficiency advantages, they provide an alternative solution for cross-border remittances in scenarios where traditional banking channels are inadequate or costly. A recent report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has indicated that since 2022, the scale of stablecoin cross-border flows has significantly increased, especially in regions with high inflation and severe exchange rate fluctuations.

However, the improvement in fund transfer efficiency also comes with potential risks. Stablecoin transactions may intensify capital outflow pressure, making emerging markets already facing current account deficits more vulnerable to currency depreciation shocks. The BIS research further points out that the increase in stablecoin liquidity is significantly correlated with subsequent currency devaluation, deviations from covered interest rate parity, and the widening gap between stablecoin implied exchange rates in segmented markets and official exchange rates.

These phenomena suggest that stablecoins may provide a technical channel to circumvent capital controls, allowing residents of emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) to convert savings into dollar-denominated assets with low friction, posing a challenge to the effectiveness of sovereign monetary policies.