Stablecoins have brought national-currency denominated monies onto blockchain. Not only is this highly commendable, it also crucially exposes the slowness of traditional money issuers in adopting new technologies. Recent regulatory advances, however, now seem to bestow stablecoins with specific advantages that may drive money fragmentation and arbitrage, create new compliance risks and distort fair competition. Economically, stablecoins are equivalent to e-money and bank deposits, as they promise the bearer a redemption at par (1:1) in a national currency. Like e-money institutions and banks, stablecoins need to ... (full story)