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Digital Money 2026
Letdowns, bubbles and no-shows: The future of digital money is harder to predict than ever
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Panels & Key Discussion Topics
Host Welcome Address by Philip Konopik, SVP Head of Visa Commercial & Money Movement Solutions (CMS) Europe
09.45 to 10.00
Keynote Address: Keith Bear, Fellow at the Centre for Alternative Finance, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge on ‘Tokenised Money: How is it Reshaping Cross-Border Finance?'
10.00 to 10.30
AS MODERATOR
CBDCs are dead; long live Stablecoins?
1. Market momentum is with Stablecoins. Is this a Stablecoin bubble or the beginning of something big?
2. What does the disappointing experience of CBDCs that have gone live so far tell us?
3. The latest BIS survey found 90 per cent of central banks are still exploring a CBDC. Are central banks pursuing CBDCs as a counter to Stablecoins?
4. The Trump administration has halted work on a US dollar CBDC in favour of US dollar Stablecoins. Despite the fact 99 per cent of Stablecoins are US dollar-denominated, is it sensible for the United States to privatise the digitisation of the US dollar?
5. Would a successful euro or Renminbi CBDC undermine the role of the US dollar as the principal reserve currency?
6. Should American payments service providers worry that the EU is pursuing a euro CBDC to recapture monetary sovereignty and revenues from banks and payments services based in the United States?
7. Would the costs of introducing a CBDC fall on central banks or banks or users of banks?
8. Is the fact that wholesale payments, securities and FX infrastructures settle in central bank money a compelling argument for a wholesale CBDC?
9. Do the ECB trials, and the Pontes-Appia strategy, prove settlement of digital asset transactions in central bank money is achievable without putting central bank money on-chain?
10. Does the success of instant retail payment services in developed markets demolish the case for retail CBDCs in developed markets?
11. Stablecoins have exhibited shortcomings, including "breaking the buck,” limited disclosures, needing central bank support, over-printing money, adoption by bad actors, and limited use outside the cryptocurrency markets. Are they a better or worse complement to central bank money than bank deposits?
12. Should Stablecoins have access to central bank money?
13. Do CBDCs offer the benefits of Stablecoins without the risks or do Stablecoins offer the benefits of CBDCs without the risks?
PANEL 1
10.30 to 11.30
How will regulation change Stablecoins?
1. Stablecoins are being regulated in all major jurisdictions. Is that positive for an industry that rose to prominence outside the regulatory perimeter?
2. The profitability of unregulated USDT dwarfs the profitability of regulated Stablecoins such as USDC. What is the incentive to be regulated?
3. How much more difficult and expensive is it to run a regulated Stablecoin than an unregulated one?
4. The pioneering Stablecoins dispensed with intermediaries. Will regulation kill them by re-intermediating banks?
5. Will a thousand Stablecoin flowers bloom in the United States when the GENIUS Act is fully implemented?
6. Does the limited number and small size of euro Stablecoins indicate that MiCAR is not encouraging Stablecoin issuance in the European Union (EU)?
7. Is the proposed regulatory regime for Stablecoins in the United Kingdom designed to drive Stablecoin issuers to other jurisdictions?
8. The UAE regulatory regime has encouraged five local banks to issue Stablecoins already. What is Abu Dhabi doing differently?
9. Which currency makes most sense for Hong Kong Stablecoin issuers: Hong Kong Dollar or CNH?
10. Has the Monetary Authority of Singapore linked Stablecoin issuance successfully to wider tokenisation initiatives such as Project Guardian?
11. Differences between jurisdictions in the regulation of Stablecoins make it impossible to operate a genuinely global, regulated Stablecoin. Is this by accident or design?
12. Regulation protects banks from losing deposits by preventing Stablecoins from paying interest and/or obliging Stablecoins to invest in bank deposits. Is this approach sustainable?
13. What regulatory challenges are posed by "white label" platforms that use their regulatory licences to host multiple Stablecoins issued by third parties?
14. Is there any role for self-regulation in the Stablecoin market?
15. Stablecoins are now a bigger financial crime risk than cryptocurrencies. Is it sufficient for Stablecoin issuers to apply traditional anti-financial crime techniques?
16. In regulating Stablecoins in the way that they are, are regulators placing short-term financial market stability ahead of both long-term stability and long-term innovation?
PANEL 2
11.30 to 12.30
Whatever happened to tokenised deposits?
1. Which banks have issued tokenised deposits and why?
2. Why aren't more banks issuing tokenised deposits?
3. Does it make more sense for banks to issue tokenised deposits than Stablecoins?
4. Do tokenised deposits need Stablecoin-style bespoke regulation?
5. Which is a more credible settlement asset for tokenised security and fund markets: Stablecoins or tokenised deposits?
6. Can tokenised deposits settle in central bank money more conveniently than Stablecoins?
7. Which is lower risk: Stablecoin reserves or insured bank liabilities?
8. Is a tokenised deposit-Stablecoin hybrid a viable idea?
9. As a place to hold cash, which makes more sense: Stablecoins or tokenised deposits?
10. Have tokenised deposits become an inter-bank instrument as well as an intra-bank instrument?
11. Are tokenised deposits becoming available on public blockchains?
12. Do tokenised deposits need an entirely new infrastructure to make them interoperable?
13. Has any tokenised deposit infrastructure or platform achieved commercial success yet?
14. Must links between tokenised deposit networks be multi-lateral rather than bi-lateral?
15. Have domestic payments using tokenised deposits progressed beyond PoCs and Pilots?
16. Have cross-border payments using tokenised deposits progressed beyond PoCs and Pilots?
17. How hard is it to use tokenised deposits on the existing internal systems of commercial banks?
18. How extensive is the use of tokenised deposits as cash collateral?
19. Are tokenised deposits waiting for Stablecoins to fail?
PANEL 3
14.15 to 15.15
Can Stablecoins escape the cryptocurrency niche?
1. Stablecoin market capitalisation and transaction volumes have grown fast in the last five years, but 80-90 per cent of activity, by value and volume, is still driven by cryptocurrency trading and DeFi applications. Can Stablecoins break out of the cryptocurrency niche?
2. Why aren't Stablecoins competing successfully in domestic payments?
3. Are Stablecoins competitive in cross-currency payments in either retail or wholesale transactions?
4. How big is the opportunity for using Stablecoins as the cash leg or as cash collateral in securities financing transactions?
5. Is it a mistake to believe that Stablecoin growth is contingent on the growth of tokenised funds and securities markets?
6. How deeply have Stablecoins penetrated corporate treasury functions?
7. Why are merchants slow to appreciate the benefits of being paid in Stablecoins?
8. Are card companies embracing Stablecoins because CBDCs would be worse?
9. Which is a bigger competitive threat to established money transfer agents: on-line competitors or Stablecoins?
10. Should all mobile payments companies follow PayPal and issue a Stablecoin?
11. Is the bank preference for Stablecoin consortiums a sign of strength, weakness or cluelessness?
12. How important to Stablecoin market growth is the embedding by technology vendors of Stablecoin functionality in established payments systems and e-commerce platforms?
13. What can Stablecoins do for corporates?
14. Can Stablecoins escape their origins in an industry characterised by illicit activity?
15. Must a mature Stablecoin market manufacture Stablecoin credit?
16. Is the ban on Stablecoins paying interest sustainable?
17. Is there a natural ceiling on the size of the Stablecoin market?
18. Who is building the interoperability infrastructure for Stablecoins?
19. Can Stablecoins preserve the "singleness" of money without access to central bank money?
20. Can euro Stablecoins work without a common euro-area fiscal policy?
21. Are non-bank Stablecoin issuance companies building viable long-term business models?
22. The question of trust: are Stablecoins ever more than one disaster away from extinction?
PANEL 4
15.15 to 16.15
What are the futures of digital money?
1. Successful digital monies will be a product of network effects. What generates network effects in digital money provision?
2. Does reliance on network effects imply digital money must evolve into a monopoly?
3. Why are banks so maladroit at embracing new forms of money and payments?
4. Do Stablecoins at scale destroy banks or transform banks?
5. Are tokenised deposits the least risky digital money option for banks?
6. What operational or infrastructural investments must bank, and central banks make to preserve the singleness of money when there is more than one form of digital money in circulation?
7. Bankers often say payments should be a utility business. Why don't central banks take them at their word and build a public infrastructure?
8. Has programmable money's moment passed?
9. The programmability of digital money is talked about as if it is an unalloyed good. Does it not increase the scope for theft and fraud?
10. How will digital money interact with artificial intelligence (AI)?
11. Will new forms of digital money emerge beyond CBDCs, Stablecoins and tokenised deposits?
12. The Satoshi dream of a peer-to-peer digital money networks without intermediaries is, if not dead, in a coma. Should it be brought back to life?
PANEL 5
17.00 to 18.00
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