Nikolas Sargeant
If the United States moves forward with a ban on stablecoin yield payments, other countries are likely to seize the opportunity and offer what American users cannot access, that's the view of Takatoshi Shibayama, Asia-Pacific lead at crypto wallet company Ledger.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Shibayama said a broad US ban would open serious conversations between stablecoin issuers, institutions, and regulators abroad about how to respond. He pointed to Australia as one example of a jurisdiction that has already granted stablecoin issuers a regulatory carve-out, though he noted that even outside the US, most stablecoin issuers currently avoid passing yields on to users, largely to protect incumbent banking interests. A shift in US policy, he suggested, could change that calculus globally.
The backdrop is a stalled US Senate bill on crypto market regulation, where a banking lobby-backed provision to ban third-party platforms from offering stablecoin yields has become a major sticking point. Crypto lobbyists have pushed back hard against the proposed restriction, leaving the legislation in limbo.
Beyond the yield debate, Shibayama observed a notable shift in how Asia's major financial institutions are engaging with the space. Rather than seeking direct exposure to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, he said institutional players in the region have increasingly focused on tokenizing financial products and exploring stablecoin issuance, treating blockchain as infrastructure rather than an investment theme.
Asset managers, he noted, are something of an exception, still exploring crypto product launches to broaden client offerings, in part because they face fewer regulatory requirements around custodianship than traditional financial institutions.
