Lawmakers have called for better stablecoin regulation, but authorities tend to have little control over the global operators of distributed ledgers that process stablecoin transactions. This chapter illustrates how peg deviations may occur when the issuer of a fiat-backed stablecoin loses its...

This paper studies the desirability of programmable payments where transfers are automatically executed conditional upon preset objective criteria. We do so by studying optimal payment arrangements in a framework that captures a wide range of economic relationships between two parties. Our...

This paper investigates how cryptocurrencies relate to concepts such as bubbles, Ponzi-schemes and digital gold in a tractable model for cryptocurrency prices. Investors in the baseline equilibrium hold coins to sell them at a profit to future users if they anticipate in increase in...

This paper considers the problem of estimating a linear model between two heavy-tailed variables if the explanatory variable has an extremely low (or high) value. We propose an estimator for the model coefficient by exploiting the tail dependence between the two variables and prove its...

This paper develops an economic framework to analyze the exchange rate of virtual currency. Three components are important: first, the current use of virtual currency to make payments; second, the decision of forward-looking investors to buy virtual currency (thereby effectively regulating its...

The present paper shows that, everything else equal, some transactions to transfer portfolio credit risk to third-party investors increase the insolvency risk of banks. This is particularly likely if a bank sells the senior tranche and retains a sufficiently large firstloss position. The results...

This paper proposes a novel methodology to calibrate the magnitude of the cap on the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) using market-based stress tests. The macroprudential authority in our paper aims to contain the possibility of a breach of a minimum capital ratio in the event of a severe...

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are a new mode of financing start-ups that saw an explosion in popularity in 2017 but declined in popularity in the second half of 2018 as regulatory pressure, instances of fraud and reports of poor performance began to undermine their reputation. We examine whether...

An important feature of physical cash payments is resilience, which is due to their indifference to power outages or network coverage. Many central banks are exploring issuing digital cash substitutes with similar online payment functionality. Such substitutes could incorporate novel features,...

We assess how the cost structure of cryptocurrency mining affects the response of miners to exchange rate fluctuations and the immutability of cryptocurrency ledgers that rely on proof-of-work. We show that the amount of mining power supplied to currencies that rely on application-specific...