One of the ironies of digital money is that the riskiest versions get the most attention with their spectacular surges and plunges. But some economists say the less heralded, stabler versions pose the greater long-term risk to the financial system.
数字货币的一个讽刺之处在于，风险最大的版本往往最受关注，因为它们有惊人的涨跌波动。但一些经济学家表示，那些不那么引人注目的、更稳定的版本却对金融体系构成更大的长期风险。
Consider the latest gyrations of the best-known risky version of digital money: bitcoins. In early October, the cryptocurrency peaked above $126,000 per unit, plunged by a third through late November, and has since recovered to around $92,000. On Wednesday, as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in a bid to buoy the economy, bitcoins climbed a bit in the immediate aftermath. The downturn has raised fears about the viability of Strategy, headed by bitcoin optimist Michael Saylor, and also cut in half the value of American Bitcoin Corp., backed by the family of President Donald Trump.
考虑一下目前最知名的高风险数字货币版本：比特币。今年早些时候，该加密货币一度突破每单位12.6万美元，随后在11月底下跌了三分之一，此后已恢复至约9.2万美元。周三，当美联储试图提振经济而降低利率时，比特币在短期内略有上涨。这一下跌引发了对由比特币乐观派迈克尔·赛勒领导的策略可行性的担忧，同时也使支持特朗普总统家族的美国比特币公司价值减半。
In that time, the leading lower-risk version of cryptocurrencies, known as Tether, lost less than 1% and has fully recovered. Yet financial experts see this form of digital money, known as stablecoins, as posing the greatest risk to the economy and consumers. That’s because stablecoins are a new and untested entity and lightly regulated while steadily integrating themselves into the traditional financial system.
在这一时期，作为主要低风险加密货币版本的 Tether（泰达币）仅损失不到 1%，现已完全恢复。然而，金融专家认为这种被称为稳定币的数字货币对经济和消费者构成了最大的风险。这是因为稳定币是一种新且未经验证的实体，监管较为宽松，同时正稳步融入传统金融体系。
Bitcoins and stablecoins differ because of the way they’re backed. Bitcoins are a volatile and speculative investment because they are backed solely by investors’ faith in a string of computer code – and by the assumption that other investors will share that faith. Stablecoins, by contrast, are designed to keep their value and are fully backed by assets considered quite safe. Tether and the second-largest stablecoin, Circle USD, are pegged to the U.S. dollar and are big buyers of U.S. Treasury bills, short-term debt, and other safe instruments often used by traditional money market funds.
比特币和稳定币的不同之处在于它们的背书方式。比特币是一种波动性大且具有投机性的投资，因为它仅由投资者对一串计算机代码的信心以及其他人也会持有这种信心的假设所支撑。相比之下，稳定币的设计目的是保持其价值，并由被认为相当安全的资产完全背书。Tether 以及第二大稳定币 Circle USD 均与美元挂钩，并大量购买美国国债、短期债务及其他常用于传统货币市场基金的安全资产。
The risk posed by stablecoins is that if for whatever reason their value falters, investors may cash out, causing a larger collapse in which the companies sell off their holdings, including their Treasury bills. If the stablecoin sector keeps growing larger, a downturn in that sector could trigger a sharp fall in the value of U.S. debt.
稳定币带来的风险在于，如果由于某种原因其价值出现下跌，投资者可能会抛售，从而引发更大的崩盘，这些公司会抛售其持有的资产，包括国库券。如果稳定币行业持续扩大，该行业出现衰退可能会引发美国债务价值的急剧下跌。
How big is the stablecoin risk?
稳定币的风险有多大？
Stablecoin issuers were already the seventh-largest buyers of Treasury debt over the previous year ending in June, according to one analysis. As their holdings grow, the risks rise, analysts agree. What they don’t agree on is how pressing that risk is.
据一项分析显示，稳定币发行方在截至6月的上一年度中已经是第七大国库券购买者。分析人士一致认为，随着其持有量的增加，风险也在上升。但他们对这种风险的紧迫性却存在分歧。
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A run on a stablecoin is remote, about as likely as a run on money market funds, says Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “The bottom line here is that the systemic risk is greatly exaggerated.”
稳定币面临挤兑的风险是遥远的，与货币市场基金面临的挤兑风险差不多，杜克大学达勒姆分校的金融学教授坎贝尔·哈维（Campbell Harvey）表示。“这里的关键是，系统性风险被大大夸大了。”
Others are more worried. “We now have private companies issuing what are essentially private dollars, which is a system we abandoned shortly after the Civil War because of a series of financial panics that it caused,” says Corey Frayer, a director at the Consumer Federation of America and former cryptocurrency policy expert at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “We have already paved the way for some pretty serious financial stability threats, and it’s hard to know when those will manifest” themselves.
其他人则更为担忧。“我们现在有私人公司发行本质上是私人美元的稳定币，这是一套我们在南北战争后不久就因它引发的一系列金融危机而放弃的体系，”美国消费者联盟的董事科里·弗雷尔表示，他此前曾是美国证券交易委员会的加密货币政策专家。“我们已经为一些相当严重的金融稳定威胁铺平了道路，而这些威胁何时显现，很难预料。”
Evan Vucci/AP 埃文·维奇/美联社
President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act, a bill that regulates stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, in the East Room of the White House, July 18, 2025, in Washington.
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普于 2025 年 7 月 18 日在华盛顿白宫东厅签署了《GENIUS 法案》，该法案旨在监管一种加密货币——稳定币。
A more immediate concern is the risk to consumers, he adds. As banks and other financial companies offer new payment systems that allow stablecoins to be used, people may start using the cryptocurrencies without realizing that they don’t come with the financial backing that the traditional financial system offers, such as deposit insurance and protection against fraud.
他补充说，一个更紧迫的问题是消费者面临的风险。随着银行和其他金融机构推出新的支付系统，允许使用稳定币，人们可能会开始使用这些加密货币，却未意识到它们不像传统金融体系那样提供存款保险和防欺诈保护等金融保障。
Concerned that government rules might slow the innovation and adoption of crypto, the Trump administration and Congress have adopted a light-touch approach to regulating the sector. For example, the Senate Banking Committee is rushing to mark up a crypto market structure bill before the Senate leaves on holiday recess. Republican senators have offered concessions to Democrats, who want stricter regulation of digital currency. The concessions reportedly would include ethics language, risk-management standards for intermediary companies handling crypto, and consumer protection standards, among other things.
担心政府监管可能会减缓加密货币的创新和采用，特朗普政府和国会采取了较为宽松的监管方式。例如，参议院银行委员会正急于推进一项加密货币市场结构法案，以便在参议院休会度假前完成审议。共和党参议员据报道已向民主党做出让步，民主党希望加强对数字货币的监管。这些让步据说将包括道德规范条款、针对处理加密货币的中介机构的风险管理标准以及消费者保护标准等。
A debate about crypto regulation
关于加密货币监管的争论
But on Monday, the American Federation of Teachers – often seen as influential because of its large membership – condemned the bill in a letter to Republican committee leaders. In the letter, CNBC reported, teachers union President Randi Weingarten wrote that the bill “strips the few safeguards that exist for crypto and erodes many protections for traditional securities. If passed, it will undercut the safety of many assets and cause problems across retirement investments.”
但周一，美国教师联合会（美国教师联合会因其庞大的会员人数常被视为有影响力）在给共和党委员会领导人的信中谴责了这项法案。据 CNBC 报道，教师联合会主席兰迪·魏因加顿在信中写道，该法案“剥夺了加密货币领域为数不多的保障措施，并削弱了许多传统证券的保护。如果通过，它将损害许多资产的安全性，并导致退休投资方面出现诸多问题。”
Others say the crypto world should be required to operate under the same rules that the traditional financial system operates under, rather than a cheaper, more lightly regulated approach.
一些人认为，加密货币领域应被要求遵循与传统金融体系相同的规则，而不是采用更便宜、监管更宽松的方式。
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In some ways, stablecoins are stabler than banks, because they’re backed by safer assets. For example, the mortgages that banks offer help Americans buy homes, which is a boost to growth. But those loans are riskier than, say, the Treasury bills that Tether and Circle rely upon. And stablecoins are more transparent than banks in publishing regularly the size of their reserves. Thus, they may need less, or at least different, regulation than the traditional financial system.
在某些方面，稳定币比银行更稳定，因为它们由更安全的资产支持。例如，银行提供的抵押贷款帮助美国人购房，这有助于经济增长。但这些贷款的风险要高于，比如 Tether 和 Circle 所依赖的国库券。而且，稳定币在定期公布其储备规模方面比银行更透明。因此，它们可能需要更少，或者至少不同的监管，而不是传统金融体系。
But the industry’s arguments that it doesn’t need things like deposit insurance are “just too optimistic by half,” says Hilary Allen, a professor at American University. “These things look like money market mutual funds, and we’ve had runs on money market mutual funds.”
但该行业认为其不需要存款保险等机制的论点，“过于乐观了一半”，美国大学教授希拉里·艾伦表示。“这些产品看起来像货币市场共同基金，而我们曾发生过货币市场共同基金的挤兑事件。”
Few people actually use crypto to make payments or send money. In 2023 and 2024, it was less than 2% of Americans, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City this fall. In fact, it’s fallen from nearly 3% in 2021 and 2022, even though roughly a fifth of Americans own crypto. If Americans don’t take up stablecoins with the same verve that they’ve invested in bitcoins and other risky cryptocurrencies, then stablecoins’ march into traditional financial markets may take longer than many anticipate.
很少有人真正使用加密货币进行支付或转账。根据堪萨斯城联邦储备银行今年秋季的一项研究，2023 年和 2024 年，使用加密货币进行支付或转账的美国人不到 2%。事实上，这一比例已从 2021 年和 2022 年的近 3%下降，尽管大约五分之一的美国人拥有加密货币。如果美国人没有像投资比特币和其他高风险加密货币那样热情地采用稳定币，那么稳定币进入传统金融市场的进程可能会比许多人预期的要慢。
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