Bank for International Settlements sets out tokenised unified ledger blueprint and warns stablecoins fall short without regulation

The Bank for International Settlements published a special chapter in its Annual Economic Report 2025 setting out a more detailed blueprint for a next-generation monetary and financial system built on a tokenised unified ledger. The approach centres on a “trilogy” of tokenised central bank reserves, tokenised commercial bank money (deposits) and tokenised government bonds, and calls on central banks and other public authorities to pave the way for this next phase. The chapter argues that tokenisation, defined as the digital representation of assets on programmable platforms, can integrate messaging, reconciliation and settlement into a single operation and enhance efficiency in cross-border payments and securities markets. It frames the design objective as preserving the core elements of “sound money” underpinned by trust in central bank money, specifically singleness, elasticity and integrity, and states that stablecoins do not meet these criteria and, if unregulated, can pose risks to financial stability and monetary sovereignty. The BIS also points to ongoing work, including the BIS Innovation Hub’s Project Agorá, led with seven central banks and 43 private sector institutions to improve cross-border payments, and Project Pine on implementing monetary policy operations in a tokenised environment. The BIS Annual Economic Report 2025 and the BIS Annual Report 2024/25 are scheduled for publication on 29 June.