Unhedged The case against stablecoins
71 snips
Mar 5, 2026 
Brendan Greeley, a financial historian and Princeton-affiliated expert on banking history, explains why stablecoins look a lot like traditional banks. He walks through the Genius Act, reserve rules and how providers earn returns while depositors do not. He also traces regulatory lessons from past banking crises and how state charters and central bank rules shape risks.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Genius Act Moved Stablecoin Oversight To States
- The Genius Act made stablecoins legal and placed their regulation at the state level in the US.
- It requires 100% reserves held in liquid, high-quality assets but forbids paying interest on deposits, effectively making them narrow banks.
Stablecoins Are Just Banks In New Clothes
- Stablecoins replicate traditional banking by taking deposits and investing them for yield while promising parity with the dollar.
- Brendan Greeley argues this is not novel: paying out interest-free deposits to investors and keeping returns is essentially banking.
Check Stablecoin Books Regularly Or Expect Failures
- Regulators must perform intrusive, regular examinations to ensure stablecoin issuers hold what they claim.
- Without federal-level oversight, states will compete for lax rules and create a race to the bottom, risking depositor money.