BIS: Bank rate hikes cut stablecoin growth by 3 points

Stablecoin market growth has slowed when U.S. banks raised deposit interest rates, with new research finding that a one-basis-point increase in deposit rates was associated with roughly three percentage points less stablecoin market capitalization growth over ten weeks. Summary BIS researchers found higher deposit rates were associated with slower stablecoin growth over ten weeks. A one-basis-point deposit rate rise corresponded to roughly three percentage points less stablecoin market growth. Researchers estimated USDC growth slowed by 4.8 percentage points, versus 1.9 percentage points for USDT. An instrumental-variable model estimated a larger nine-percentage-point slowdown following a one-basis-point increase in deposit rates. Similar substitution patterns appeared in certificates of deposit and decentralized finance lending scenarios, researchers found. In an October 13 working paper titled Are Stablecoins and Bank Deposits Substitutes?, economists Rashad Ahmed and Iñaki Aldasoro examined weekly U.S. data from January 2019 to June 2025. Their findings suggest that consumers and investors respond to the returns offered by traditional bank accounts when deciding how much money t...