BIS Says Tokenized Unified Ledger Offers Better Solutions Than Stablecoins

A tokenized unified ledger developed by central banks and public authorities will enhance efficiencies without the shortcomings of stablecoins, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Tuesday (June 24).

Stablecoins “fall short” as a form of sound money and “without regulation pose a risk to financial stability and monetary sovereignty,” BIS said in a Tuesday press release outlining a chapter from the full BIS Annual Economic Report 2025 that will be published June 29.

Because stablecoins do not deliver acceptance for payment at par, timely discharge of obligations or safeguards against financial crime, “their future role is unclear,” the release said.

A tokenized unified ledger would maintain these “key principles of sound money” based on trust in central bank money while enhancing efficiency and opening new opportunities in cross-border payments, securities markets and other use cases, according to the release.

This solution includes tokenized central bank reserves, commercial bank money and government bonds, per the release.

As a digital representation of assets on programmable platforms, tokenization integrates messaging, reconciliation and settlement into one operation and ushers in “a new era for the financial system,” the release said.

BIS called on central banks and public authorities to pave the way for this new era. It added in the release that BIS is already working with central banks to develop tokenization through Project Agorá and Project Pine.

Project Agorá, which was announced just over a year ago, is a collaborative initiative to build a multicurrency unified ledger that merges tokenized commercial bank deposits with wholesale central bank money, all on a programmable platform featuring smart contracts, PYMNTS reported June 11.

The project’s goal challenges the relevance of stablecoins in the institutional, cross-border and regulated financial sphere by offering a credible, supervised alternative.

Project Pine, which is a collaboration between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the BIS Innovation Hub, demonstrated that central banks can effectively implement monetary policies using blockchain-based smart contracts in tokenized asset environments, PYMNTS reported in May.

The project was able to successfully automate traditional monetary policy tools, such as adjusting interest rates and managing reserves, in simulated scenarios.

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