BIS says dollar-backed stablecoins may bypass capital controls in emerging markets

Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements say dollar-backed stablecoins are building a form of “digital dollarization” that is largely unaffected by capital controls, especially in emerging markets. For PSPs, that matters because the old playbook for managing FX restrictions and banking rails does not seem to catch tokenized dollar flows in the same way.

1. BIS researchers analyzed foreign-currency deposits and dollar-pegged stablecoin inflows across more than 130 economies. They found both tend to rise during periods of macroeconomic stress, but stablecoin flows showed little response to capital controls or other FX restrictions.
2. The authors said this likely happens because “stablecoins are partly circulating outside the regulatory perimeter.” In practice, that means households and businesses can move into dollars without going through the banking system in the same way they would with traditional foreign-currency deposits.
3. The study warns that stablecoins could weaken monetary sovereignty in emerging markets with weak currencies or limited access to reliable financial services. BIS also said policymakers may need new tools to manage financial stability as stablecoins become more widely used, because rules built for traditional banking and foreign-currency deposits may be less effective in a tokenized financial system.
4. Despite those risks, BIS found little evidence that deposit dollarization weakens the transmission of monetary policy. It did find that countries with higher foreign-currency deposits faced a somewhat greater risk of elevated inflation, which is the part treasurers and payments teams tend to notice first.
5. The findings line up with recent market behavior. The IMF said in its analysis of Nigeria that households and small businesses are using US dollar-pegged stablecoins for cross-border payments, remittances and access to dollar-denominated assets as inflation, currency depreciation and limited access to foreign exchange drive demand. In Latin America, Bitso Business reported an 81% year-over-year increase in stablecoin payment volume during the first half of 2026, and said Circle’s USDC (USDT) and Tether’s USDT (USDT) accounted for 40% of all crypto purchases in the region in 2025, surpassing Bitcoin for the first time.

For high-risk PSPs, the useful takeaway is not that stablecoins are “good” or “bad”; it is that they are becoming a parallel dollar rail in places where FX controls and banking access already shape how merchants collect, settle and move funds. That changes the compliance, treasury and settlement conversation fast.