Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

The bill, which would allow uninsured trust companies to issue stablecoins, represents a perilous departure from historically sound financial regulatory policies, and would open the door to potentially catastrophic market disruptions.

Congress must act to ban nonbanks from issuing stablecoins. The products are virtually equivalent to bank deposits, and should be regulated as such.

Federal officials should have protected both banks' uninsured depositors by following the law's carefully designed framework for dealing with failures of systemically important banks.

Allowing “stablecoin banks” access to the benefits of a bank charter without the obligation to carry federal deposit insurance creates moral hazard on steroids.

Regulators have repeatedly found that financial firms with more than $100 billion in assets can pose systemic risks.

Events of the past decade demonstrate that further tearing down firewalls between banking and nonbanking businesses would be a huge mistake.

The megabanks that emerged relatively unscathed from the crisis are cited as proof of universal banking's benefits, but recent events have debunked that claim.