CoinFund president slams BIS’ take on crypto

CoinFund president Christopher Perkins has slammed the take of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on digital assets. According to the head of the blockchain investment firm, the push from the BIS to isolate crypto markets is dangerous.

According to Perkins, the controversial recommendations made on the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector and stablecoins pose a danger to the entire financial ecosystem. “Many of their recommendations and conclusions — perhaps due to a mix of fear, arrogance, or ignorance — are completely uninformed and, frankly, dangerous,” Perkins said. Perkins was replying to an April 15 report by the BIS, titled “Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance: Functions and Financial Stability Implications.”

CoinFund president says BIS recommendations expose TradFi to risks

In his post on X, the CoinFund president mentioned that crypto is not communism, pushing back against the call by the BIS for a containment approach to isolate crypto from the traditional finance sector and the broader economy. “It’s the new internet that provides anyone with a connection access to financial services. You cannot control it anymore than you control the internet,” he said.

The @BIS_org just published a new paper, “Cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance: functions and financial stability implication.” The good news is that the authors finally realize that advancements in crypto (including the growth of ETFs, stablecoins and tokenized real world…

— Christopher Perkins 🦅🌎⚓️NYC (@perkinscr97) April 19, 2025

The CoinFund president noted that the containment approach proposed by the BIS toward digital assets could open the traditional finance system to massive liquidity risks of unimaginable scale, noting that the crypto market operates 24/7, while traditional finance systems shut down after trading hours. “If implemented they will cause–not mitigate–the systemic risk they seek to prevent,” Perkins added.

The BIS report warned that the number of investors and amount of capital in crypto and DeFi have reached a critical mass, with investor protection becoming something of a concern for regulators globally. The report also mentioned that the size of the crypto market shows that authorities need to be worried about the stability of crypto over and above the role it may have for TradFi and the real economy. The bank also highlighted stablecoins as a means through which users have been transferring value within crypto.

Industry participants push back on the BIS report

The CoinFund president also slated the BIS’ claims that the decentralized finance sector presents a significant challenge. He argued that it represents a big improvement over the opacity and imbalances of the traditional finance system. Discussing the BIS’ claims of the anonymity of developers, Perkins questioned its relevance. “Sorry, but when was the last time a TradFi company published a list of its developers? Sure, public companies provide a degree of disclosures and transparency, but they seem to be dying off in favor of private markets,” he said.

He also criticized the concerns around stablecoins, especially the fact that the report mentioned that it could lead to macroeconomic instability in countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe. “If there is demand for USD stablecoins and it helps improve the condition of anyone in the developing world, perhaps that is a good thing?! Are you suggesting that the economic conditions in countries like this are acceptable and should be perpetuated? No, people across the world deserve access to basic financial services,” he said.

The CoinFund president was not the only one who had issues with the report, with Lightspark co-founder Christian Catalini also weighing in. He criticized the report, giving compelling arguments on some loopholes he found in the report. Discussing stablecoins, he said, “The paper frets, regulators pace, and developers keep building. With sensible rules, a digital dollar can settle on weekends and chat with smart contracts—perks that make CBDC pilots look like dial‑up internet.” He summed up the report with an analogy: “Think: writing parking regulations for a fleet of self‑driving drones — earnest work, two technological leaps behind.”

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