According to Foresight News and Caixin, Li Bo, the former deputy governor of the central bank and current vice president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated during the Summer Davos that there are currently numerous regulatory experiments and explorations of digital currencies or stablecoins happening worldwide. Many countries, whether in the U.S., Europe, or Asia, are working to establish appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks for stablecoins, but many issues remain to be addressed. Two core questions are particularly crucial in this process:
First, do stablecoins belong to the category of currency or financial assets? This is important because the legal and regulatory requirements for the two are vastly different.
Second, if stablecoins are classified as currency, what level of currency do they belong to? Is it broad money M2, or cash-like M0? Different categories of money require different regulatory systems, including the construction of mechanisms such as anti-money laundering.