BlackRock says stablecoins can only work as settlement assets if banks accept them, convert them into deposits, and central banks stand behind the final layer — a model the world’s largest asset manager laid out at the European Blockchain Convention this week.
By Ana Gonzalez | September 19, 2026
Nikhil Sharma, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, told a panel on tokenized forms of money that the core issue is the “singleness of money” — the principle that a euro is a euro whether it sits in a bank account, a stablecoin or a central-bank system. For the hundreds of millions of people now holding dollar-linked tokens, his comments sketch both a promise and a warning about what stablecoins are, and what they are not.
What BlackRock Actually Said
Speaking during the convention’s Day 1 program in Madrid, Sharma argued that anyone using stablecoins for payments and settlement needs to understand four things: what the claim is, what the backing is, what the form is, and what the access conditions are. “When you think about what you’re using as cash for payments and settlement, you look at what’s the claim, what’s the backing, what’s the form, what’s the access,” he said, according to the event’s media briefing.
His concrete example: paying with a stablecoin should mean the recipient’s bank recognizes the token, converts it into a deposit liability — money that shows up in an ordinary bank account — and provides clear recourse if anything goes wrong. “In tangible terms: I could pay through a stablecoin, and the banking infrastructure needs to accept that, transform it into a deposit liability, and provide that recourse,” Sharma said. At the final layer, where banks settle obligations with each other, he placed central banks, settling in traditional fiat money or potentially a wholesale central bank digital currency.
Why One Form of Money Matters More Than Options
Sharma was careful to draw a line between choice and safety. “From an investor-optionality standpoint, having different forms of cash is a good thing. But from a recourse, economic exposure, and risk standpoint, singleness of money is an imperative,” he said. In everyday terms: it is fine to have several digital wallets and token types, but each one carries a different risk profile, and they must all be interchangeable at face value for the system to hold together.
The differences are real. A commercial-bank deposit is a liability of that bank, typically covered by deposit-protection schemes. A stablecoin is a claim structured by its issuer and its governing terms — you depend on the issuer’s reserves, custody arrangements and ability to process redemptions. Central-bank money is a direct claim on the monetary authority. Even when a token reliably tracks one dollar in normal trading, liquidity pressure or doubts about its backing can push it below its stated value, as past depegs have shown. Interoperability alone does not erase those differences, Sharma argued.
Central Banks Are Not Sitting Out
Philipp Müller of the Swiss National Bank, speaking from the central-bank perspective on the same topic, said commercial banks could issue stablecoins if they chose to, but that his institution’s job is to provide banks with a safe settlement method. “That could be wholesale CBDC, it could still be fiat money. Only time will tell,” Müller said. His remarks draw a clean division: banks may offer retail products, while central banks focus on settling obligations between regulated institutions and protecting financial stability.
The policy backdrop is moving quickly on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States enacted the GENIUS Act in July 2025, creating a federal framework under which only permitted issuers may issue payment stablecoins, subject to reserve, disclosure and regulatory requirements. In Europe, ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel previously said dollar-backed stablecoins could strengthen the dollar’s international position as the sector approached a 300 billion USD market value, while supporting the digital euro — piloting expected in 2027 — as a public alternative. During another Day 1 panel, ARK Invest’s Lorenzo Valente sized the digital-asset market at about 3 trillion USD, with stablecoins at roughly 300 billion and tokenized assets between 30 billion and 40 billion.
What This Means for Your Wallet
Two practical takeaways follow from BlackRock’s framework. First, a stablecoin is not an insured bank deposit, no matter how stable its price looks. Redemption terms, legal priority and access to deposit protection differ by product and jurisdiction, and reserve quality does not change that. Second, tokenized markets only work if the cash side settles too. A recent examination of the weekend dollar funding gap found that always-open tokenized markets can face liquidity pressure when conventional dollar rails are closed — markets may move on Sunday, but the banks do not.
Stablecoin reserves also connect token holders to the U.S. government-debt market: when issuers back circulating tokens with short-term Treasuries, growth in stablecoin supply can translate into additional demand for those securities. That is one reason regulators on both continents treat the sector as systemically interesting rather than as a crypto niche.
The Verdict
When the largest asset manager in the world starts describing the plumbing required to make stablecoins settle like real money — bank acceptance, deposit conversion, central-bank backstop — the direction of travel is unmistakable. Stablecoins are being absorbed into the regulated financial system rather than replacing it. Until banks actually accept and convert them at scale, treat every token as what it legally is: a claim on an issuer, not money in the bank.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
the recourse point is the real tell. today if your stablecoin settlement fails mid transfer you have no one to call. a deposit liability means an actual phone number
sharma saying a euro is a euro whether it sits in a bank, a stablecoin or a CBDC is doing a lot of quiet work in that sentence. blackrock wants the rails
BUIDL settles through the exact plumbing he is describing. of course he wants banks as the on ramp, thats the distribution channel
the rails are secondary, the deposit is the prize. every token parked as a bank liability earns someone float while the holder gets zero
exactly, the token becomes the deposit and the bank earns the float while you wait on settlement. the holder still gets zero, sharma left that part out
or blackrock knows a market this size dies the first time a stablecoin breaks par mid settlement. someone has to guarantee the floor, better them than tether imo
Claim, backing, form, access. Honestly the clearest four-part framework for evaluating a stablecoin I’ve heard from a TradFi panel.
Investor-optionality is a nice frame while reserve disclosure for half these tokens is still a monthly pdf. Claim, backing, form, access only works if the backing part is actually auditable.
the singleness argument is fair but whats stopping a bank from redeeming your stablecoin slower than the chain does. recourse with a queue is not obviously better
Singleness of money is such an underrated point. A euro locked in a stablecoin contract needs to redeem at exactly 1 or the whole payments pitch breaks. Sharma clearly gets it.
blackrock saying stablecoins need banks is blackrock saying stablecoins should run through blackrock. convenient take from the largest asset manager on earth lol
true but the alternative is tether deciding redemption policy unilaterally at 2am. a bank regulator in the loop is the less bad option tbh
BUIDL settles through this exact plumbing, of course he wants banks on the ramp. a distribution pitch wearing a policy hat
Note he said central banks stand behind the final settlement layer. That is basically describing CBDC rails with a corporate token sitting on top.
pretty much, the deposit liability line is the tell. once the bank holds the token as a liability youve rebuilt correspondent banking with extra steps
basically, and the quiet part is who earns the float while the token sits as a deposit liability waiting for that final cbdc leg. somebody collects on every hop
exactly, at this scale the float is billions a year. map who collects on each hop and the whole panel reads very differently
imagine waiting on a bank compliance queue to settle a stablecoin transfer that takes 12 seconds on-chain. the speed mismatch alone kills the pitch