The Rise of Digital Finance

[Extracted from: Banking and Antitrust

133 Yale L. J. 1162 (2024)

Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 24-03

93 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2024 Last revised: 7 Mar 2024

  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4700435 ]

B. The Rise of Digital Finance 

    Post-2008, banking and finance have entered an era of digital disruption and transformation.453 Today, algorithms allow cryptographically secured record-keeping and peer-to-peer trading of diverse digital assets on “distributed ledgers” or “blockchains.” 454 With this promise of tech-enabled decentralization, digital finance is often touted as inherently more competitive and democratic than the traditional financial system. Yet, the digitization of financial services is not a value-neutral technological development; it is a political project that seeks to redefine core financial and economic relationships often in nontransparent ways. 455 New market actors use technology to unbundle and supercharge the existing banking model, thus exacerbating many of the political-economy concerns driving antimonopoly policy. From a public policy perspective, the greatest challenge is not simply accommodating transaction-level technological change but understanding and managing the shifts in the distribution and exercise of structural power in the rapidly self-reinventing financial markets. 456 

    To date, the evolution of fintech and crypto-finance has largely followed the familiar trajectory of “shadow banking,” whereby traditional banking functions—money creation and credit allocation—are unbundled and replicated outside of the regulated banking system. 457 Shadow banking in general, and fintech and crypto specifically, are often motivated by a desire to arbitrage around the existing banking rules and regulations, thereby capturing the benefits of banks’ “specialness” while evading the constraints of banking law. 458 As the pre-2008 experience shows, unchecked growth of such alternative markets impairs regulators’ ability to prevent excessive accumulations of risk and leverage in the financial system. More fundamentally, permitting the rampant growth of private forms of money and money substitutes threatens the sovereign public’s ability to control the supply and flow of money and credit in the economy. 459 

   Cryptocurrencies, designed to function as substitutes for sovereign money, bring these public/private dynamics to the surface. The conception of Bitcoin, for example, was openly “celebrated as an informal declaration of independence from corrupt state-backed money.” 460 Ironically, its failure to become a viable form of money underscores the fact that private digital currencies need access to the nation’s full faith and credit. 

   Stablecoins, which claim to maintain stable value pegged to the U.S. dollar or other safe assets, emerged in response to this demand. Stablecoins are typically collateralized by dollar bank deposits and government bonds from which they derive their value and capacity to function as a private substitute for public money. 461 Currently dominant stablecoins—including USD Coin, Tether, and Binance USD—are the “on ramp” connecting crypto markets to the rest of the financial system. 462 

   Stablecoins support an entire decentralized-finance ecosystem that utilizes software in place of traditional financial intermediaries to replicate lending, asset management, trade execution, and other financial services. 463 A structurally complex and interconnected web of exchanges, liquidity providers, investment vehicles, and other nodes perform critical functions in these markets. 464 Without regulatory oversight and disclosure mandates, potential conflicts of interest and overlaps in the ownership and control of various nodes are difficult to detect. 465 

    This blurring of legal and regulatory lines is especially problematic given the private-market actors’ desire to scale up digital-asset trading by integrating it into the traditional financial system. Currently, many crypto and fintech firms have some affiliation with regulated banks. 466 Banks perform depository and back-office services on behalf of tech platforms. 467 In “rent-a-charter” arrangements, fintech companies outsource loan origination to their partner banks, benefitting from federal preemption of certain state consumer protection laws. 468 Federally insured banks may also act as third-party custodians of crypto assets and provide related services. 469 These and other evolving relationships enable nonbanks to benefit from cheap deposit funding and other banking privileges, while operating outside of the bank regulatory regime and defying the legally mandated separation of banking and commerce. 470 Left unchecked, this can easily morph into a modern-day version of loosely organized “money trusts” controlling the flows of money, credit, and commercial goods and services through their platforms. 

    Banks are also developing their own digital-asset operations. Large Wall Street conglomerates are using blockchain technology, 471 running digital platforms for trading tokenized securities and derivatives, 472 issuing stablecoins, 473 and offering their clients digital-asset investment products. 474 If allowed, a massive entry of publicly subsidized banks will spur potentially unprecedented growth of digital-asset markets. 475 As with many past “innovations,” tokenization offers regulated firms the opening to contest and relitigate the appropriate boundaries and applicability of existing rules to financial products offered in new packages or under new labels. It also creates new forms of structural interconnectedness between crypto firms and regulated financial institutions. 476 This raises significant concerns not only about financial stability but also about excessive concentrations of power in digital platform-based finance. 

     The latter concern is particularly urgent due to the heightened risks related to the collection, use, and misuse of customer data by crypto, fintech, and Big Tech firms. Because consumer information is vital to their businesses, these entities collect vast amounts of personal and financial data. 477 Large-scale combinations of tech platforms, data, and finance enable potentially systematic anticonsumer and anticompetitive practices. For example, tying has become a common business practice for digital platforms. 478 Integrated and powerful techfinance platforms can engage in unfair pricing and manipulation of consumer behavior; 479 illicitly collect and weaponize competitor information; 480 and use their data and market power to trap consumers inside their “walled gardens.” 481 

     Diem Association, a corporate consortium led by Big Tech giant Meta, brought these risks into sharp relief when it announced its plan to issue a global stablecoin called Diem. 482 The project drew backlash from policymakers, alarmed by its potential to facilitate illegal transactions and threaten financial stability. 483 What made this project a truly systemic concern, however, was its potential to create a globally dominant, private monetary system and a captive marketplace, controlled by Meta and built on top of its social-media platform. 484 Although the Diem project was eventually scrapped, the emergence of such a superplatform remains an ongoing threat. In early August 2023, for example, the dominant electronic-payment company PayPal announced the launch of its own U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin for use by PayPal customers. 485 Issued on the Ethereum blockchain in partnership with a state-chartered stablecoin issuer, PayPal USD may well be able to succeed where Diem has failed. 486 

     These structural dynamics expose the key motivations behind much of today’s digital innovation: the relentless push to both “unbundle” and supercharge the private benefits and privileges of the banking franchise, while also decoupling them from the accompanying public accountability and legal constraints on the misuse of that franchise. In doing so, the digital disruption is pushing against the traditional public-policy principles embedded in the U.S. banking law. Rather than democratizing the financial system and making it more competitive, current developments in digital-asset markets implicate many concerns historically associated with corporate “bigness” and the rise of “money trusts.” 487 The growing specter of Big Tech becoming an integral part of the new-generation TBTF finance—bigger, faster, and relentlessly expansive—heightens and concretizes these concerns. 488 

     Yet, the U.S. policy discourse focuses primarily on making digital assets “safer” for consumers and investors in order to facilitate “responsible innovation” in financial markets. 489 The efforts to establish “regulatory sandboxes” 490 and create special fintech charters 491 reflect this fundamentally accommodative approach to digitization. 492 An even clearer example is the current debate on stablecoin regulation, forcefully converging around the central goal of making private stablecoins “stable” and “safe” for use in payments—typically, by limiting their issuance to FDIC-insured banks or mandating the composition of the reserves backing their value. 493 

   The principal flaw of this approach is its limited focus on the microlevel, transactional benefits of stablecoins and related technologies. Framing the key policy choices in terms of “fast and safe payments” obscures potentially far-reaching macrolevel, structural implications of opening the banking franchise to private cryptocurrency issuers or,conversely, opening private cryptocurrency markets to banks. Institutionalized access to direct or indirect public subsidies can turbocharge speculative trading in digital assets and spawn the next-generation crypto system—infinitely scalable and highly concentrated, yet also structurally connected to the core of traditional finance. This digitized version of finance would further blur the already problematic line between ostensibly private markets and the ever-expanding public safety net. It would grow increasingly complex and opaque, difficult to govern or regulate, and prone to much faster and more violent crisis dynamics than the current system has ever been. 494 To guard against these dangers, policymakers must expand their view beyond transactional efficiencies and “safety” of individual technologies and focus on the structural dynamics and tech-driven power shifts in financial markets. At every point, their probing gaze should be fixed not on any single “innovation” but on the ecosystem around it.   

     This is where the project of rediscovering the antimonopoly spirit and function of banking law is especially relevant and important. It provides both a comprehensive normative foundation and time-tested doctrinal apparatus for more effective policymaking in digitized financial markets. Legal constraints on banking institutions’ activities and affiliations are particularly potent—and currently underutilized—tools in this respect. Regulators should use these provisions more assertively and flexibly, both (1) to prevent banks from engaging in, or channeling credit into, crypto speculation; and (2) to keep fintech and crypto firms from illicitly exploiting the bank subsidy. Legislative and regulatory actions that enable fintech and crypto firms to operate inside the banking system, or to replicate such access through contractual arrangements with banking institutions, should, at the very least, explicitly subject such nonbank entities to the BHCA’s prohibitions on combining banking and commerce. 495 In doing so, it is critical to give regulators greater flexibility in identifying and limiting new patterns of direct control or indirect controlling influence, which may lead to excessive concentrations of both financial risk and market power. Furthermore, depending on the business models or structural footprints of the relevant entities, it may be necessary to subject them to a more stringent “Super-BHCA” regime, along with stricter “Super-23A” limitations on their transactions with affiliates. 496 Instituting special restrictions against tying, insider transactions, and ownership and management interlocks are similarly important—especially, given the existing evidence of how prevalent such practices are in the fintech, crypto, and digital-platform markets. These measures would create structural barriers to abuses of concentrated market power in digital finance, reducing its potential to harm consumers and destabilize the financial system. 

    Again, our goal is not to offer specific solutions to specific problems raised by the ongoing digitization of finance. We use these examples to illustrate how the new narrative of U.S. banking law advanced in this Essay can help to reset regulatory priorities in this area. Combining traditional prudential aims of banking law with broader antimonopoly concerns creates an opening for more effective and comprehensive responses to contemporary technological disruptions. Only by targeting structural power shifts in the rapidly evolving financial markets can the stability, vitality, and democratic foundations of our economy be preserved.

Notes:

453. See Steele, supra note 259, at 234-35. 

454. Robleh Ali, John Barrdear, Roger Clews & James Southgate, Innovations in Payment Technologies and the Emergence of Digital Currencies, 54 Bank Eng. Q. Bull. 262, 266-67 (2014). 

455. See Omarova, supra note 34, at 735 (“expos[ing] the normative and political significance of fintech as the catalyst for a potentially decisive shift in the underlying public-private balance of powers, competencies, and roles in the financial system.”). 

456. See generally Omarova, supra note 33 (offering a taxonomy of, and suggesting regulatory responses to, the macrostructural effects of fintech). 

457. See Hockett & Omarova, supra note 29, at 1202-11. 

458. See Crypto-Assets: Implications for Consumers, Investors, and Businesses, Dep’t of the Treasury 40 (2022) [hereinafter Treasury Crypto-Asset Report], https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/CryptoAsset_EO5.pdf  [https://perma.cc/VKC2-7MV3 ]. 

459. Omarova, supra note 34, at 792. 

460. Archie Chaudhury, Reflecting on Satoshi Nakamoto’s Manifesto, The Bitcoin White Paper, Bitcoin Mag. (Oct. 31, 2022), https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/reflecting-on-satoshiwhite-paper  [https://perma.cc/3G3B-UMYJ ]. 

461. Some stablecoins are backed by other crypto assets, and so-called algorithmic stablecoins employ software to stabilize their value. Most stablecoins, however, are backed by the U.S. dollar reserves. Mitsu Adachi et al., Stablecoins’ Role in Crypto and Beyond: Functions, Risks, and Policy, Eur. Cent. Bank Macroprudential Bull. (July 11, 2022), https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/financial-stability/macroprudential-bulletin/html/ecb.mpbu202207_2~836f682ed7.en.html  [https://perma.cc/R5J8-JQ6G ]. 

462. See Gordon Y. Liao & John Caramichael, Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking 6 (Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Rsrv. Sys., International Finance Discussion Papers 1334), https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/files/ifdp1334.pdf  [https://perma.cc/2EF8-GDM8 ].

463. See Decentralized Finance: (DeFi) Policy-Maker Toolkit, World Econ. F. 5-11 (June 2021), https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/decentralized-finance-defi-policy-maker-toolkit  [https://perma.cc/2B72-KBES ]. 

464. See Alexandra Born, Isabella Gschossmann, Alexander Hodbod, Claudia Lambert & Antonella Pellicani, Decentralised Finance—A New Unregulated Non-Bank System?, Eur. Cent. Bank MacroPrudential Bull. (July 11, 2022), https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/financial-stability/macroprudential-bulletin/focus/2022/html/ecb.mpbu202207_focus1.en.html  [https://perma.cc/J2LM-GQV2 ]. 

465. Concentrated holdings of many DeFi protocols’ and platforms’ governance tokens amplify concerns about market manipulation, self-dealing, and the overall fragility of crypto-finance. See Treasury Crypto-Asset Report, supra note 458, at 30, 36; Report on Stablecoins, President’s Working Grp. on Fin. Mkts., Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., & Off. Comptroller Currency 9 (Nov. 2021) [hereinafter Report on Stablecoins] https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/StableCoinReport_Nov1_508.pdf  [https://perma.cc/5W2T-PGMD ]. 

466. See Report on Stablecoins, supra note 465, at 12-13. 

467. See Assessing the Impact of New Entrant Non-Bank Firms on Competition in Consumer Finance Markets, Dep’t of the Treasury 25 (Nov. 2022) [hereinafter Treasury Fintech Report], https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Assessing-the-Impact-of-New-Entrant-Nonbank-Firms.pdf  [https://perma.cc/J7XM-R4N9 ]. 

468. See Christopher K. Odinet, Predatory Fintech and the Politics of Banking,106 Iowa L. Rev.1739, 1745-46, 1795-98 (2021). 

469. Jonathan V. Gould, Offi. of the Comptroller of the Currency Interpretive Letter No. 1170, Authority of a National Bank to Provide Cryptocurrency Custody Services for Customers 1 (July 22, 2020); Benjamin W. McDonough, Off. of the Comptroller of the Currency Interpretive Letter No. 1179, Chief Counsel’s Interpretation Clarifying: (1) Authority of a Bank to Engage in Certain Cryptocurrency Activities; and (2) Authority of the OCC to Charter a National Trust Bank 1 (Nov. 18, 2021). 

470. Treasury Fintech Report, supra note 467, at 24, 80-84. In addition to subsidized deposit funding, crypto companies are seeking access to Federal Reserve master accounts and the associated public payment system. See Custodia Bank, Inc. v. Fed. Rsrv. Bd. of Governors, No. 22-CV125, 2022 WL 16901942, at *1-2 (D. Wyo. Nov. 11, 2022) (alleging an unlawful delay in the Fed’s evaluation of Custodia’s application for a master account under the Federal Reserve Act). 

471. Eva Szalay & Philip Stafford, HSBC and Wells Fargo to Settle Currency Trades with Blockchain, Fin. Times (Dec. 13, 2021), https://www.ft.com/content/1a4dcaf5-2b4b-4f0b-8c58-a8fa173f24b3  [https://perma.cc/3WLM-WX6J ]; Yueqi Yang, JPMorgan Finds New Use for Blockchain in Trading and Lending, Bloomberg (May 26, 2022, 8:30 AM EDT), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-26/jpmorgan-finds-new-use-forblockchain-in-collateral-settlement  [https://perma.cc/T2HK-8HHU ]. 

472. Goldman Sachs Unveils Digital Asset Platform with EIB €100m Blockchain Bond, Ledger Insights (Nov. 30, 2022), https://www.ledgerinsights.com/goldman-sachs-unveils-digitalasset-platform-with-eib-e100m-blockchain-bond  [https://perma.cc/MC78-7VFB ]; Penny Crosman, How JPMorgan Is Developing an Internet of Money, Am. Banker (July 25, 2022, 1:46 PM EDT), https://www.americanbanker.com/news/how-jpmorgan-is-developing-an-internet-of-money  [https://perma.cc/DH6Z-EYD7 ]. 

473. Penny Crosman, Banks Form Consortium to Mint USDF Stablecoins, Am. Banker (Jan. 12, 2022, 12:27 PM EST), https://www.americanbanker.com/news/banks-form-consortium-tomint-usdf-stablecoins  [https://perma.cc/P5YG-4D2A ]; Onyx Coin Systems Product Team, J.P. Morgan, https://www.jpmorgan.com/onyx/coin-system.htm  [https://perma.cc/2VPP888B ]. 

474. Hugh Son, Morgan Stanley Becomes the First Big U.S. Bank to Offer its Wealthy Clients Access to Bitcoin Funds, CNBC (Mar. 17, 2021, 8:52 PM EDT), https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/bitcoin-morgan-stanley-is-the-first-big-us-bank-to-offer-wealthy-clients-access-tobitcoin-funds.html   [https://perma.cc/8Q6R-WVAP ]. 

475. Historically, the entry of U.S. banks into derivatives trading spurred the exponential growth of global derivatives markets. See Omarova, supra note 323, at 1044-45 (“This Article tells a story of one U.S. regulatory agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), gradually and deliberately expanding the ability of large U.S. commercial banks to engage in trading and dealing in complex over-the-counter derivatives and emerge as the leading players in global derivative markets.” (footnotes omitted)). 

476. For example, Silvergate Bank, a leading provider of banking services to the crypto-industry, experienced a massive deposit run after the collapse of FTX, a major crypto-exchange, in late 2022. Yueqi Yang & Hannah Levitt, Crypto Panic at Silvergate Spawns a New Breed of Bank Run, Bloomberg (Jan. 6, 2023, 12:44 PM EST), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-06/crypto-panic-at-silvergate-spawns-a-new-breed-of-bank-run  [https://perma.cc/93VR-QPZY ]. Silvergate borrowed $4.3 billion from the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Kate Berry, Silvergate Bank Loaded Up on $4.3 Billion in Home Loan Bank Advances, Am. Banker (Jan. 10, 2023, 1:56 PM EST), https://www.americanbanker.com/news/silvergatebank-loaded-up-on-4-3-billion-in-fhlb-advances  [https://perma.cc/JTV3-JH89 ]. This illustrates the extraordinary private benefits—and potential public costs—of expanding direct or indirect access to the federal safety net. Silvergate was eventually forced to self-liquidate, creating additional reputational risks for Signature Bank, which offered deposit services to crypto businesses. Signature’s highly concentrated deposit base and large amounts of uninsured deposits ultimately led to its failure. See FDIC’s Supervision of Signature Bank, Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp. 13-16 (Apr. 28, 2023), https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2023/pr23033a.pdf  [https://perma.cc/CA87-X3SH ]. 

477. Treasury Fintech Report, supra note 467, at 86; see also Treasury Crypto-Asset Report, supra note 458, at 49 (describing privacy and surveillance risks associated with crypto-assets and crypto platforms). 

478. See Qian Wu & Niels J. Philipsen, The Law and Economics of Tying in Digital Platforms: Comparing Tencent and Android, 19 J. Competition L. & Econ. 103, 103 (2023). 

479. Treasury Fintech Report, supra note 467, at 88. 

480. Khan, supra note 64, at 1025-33. 

481. Id. at 1096-98; see also CFPB Off. of Competition & Innovation & Off. of Mkts., Big Tech’s Role in Contactless Payments: Analysis of Mobile Device Operating Systems and Tap-to-Pay Practices, Cons. Fin. Prot. Bureau (Sept. 7, 2023), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/big-techs-role-in-contactless-payments-analysis-of-mobile-deviceoperating-systems-and-tap-to-pay-practices/full-report  [https://perma.cc/2MZZ-Q9AV ] (discussing the ability for the Apple Pay digital wallet to restrict its tap-to-pay functions for disfavored products, raising potential implications for the applicability of open banking regulations). 

 482. Ryan Browne, Facebook-backed Diem Aims to Launch Digital Currency Pilot Later This Year, CNBC (Apr. 21, 2021, 8:17 AM EDT), https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/facebook-backeddiem-aims-to-launch-digital-currency-pilot-in-2021.html  [https://perma.cc/VR3YRYHM ]. 

483. Paul Kiernan, Fed’s Powell Says Facebook’s Libra Raises ‘Serious Concerns,’ Wall St. J. (July 11, 2019, 8:52 PM ET), https://www.wsj.com/articles/feds-jerome-powell-faces-senators-afterrate-cut-signal-11562837403  [https://perma.cc/2JTL-A2XG ]. 

484. Saule Omarova & Graham Steele, Opinion, There’s a Lot We Still Don’t Know About Libra, N.Y. Times (Nov. 4, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/facebook-libra-cryptocurrency.html  [https://perma.cc/TCG4-48RA ]. 

485. See Press Release, PayPal, PayPal Launches U.S. Dollar Stablecoin (Aug. 7, 2023), https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2023-08-07-PayPal-Launches-U-S-Dollar-Stablecoin  [https://perma.cc/2G9B-QWA9 ]. 

486. See Michael J. Casey, Opinion, PayPal’s Stablecoin Is No Libra. Why the Timing Feels Right, Consensus Mag. (Aug. 11, 2023, 2:58 PM EDT), https://www.coindesk.com/consensusmagazine/2023/08/11/paypals-stablecoin-is-no-libra-why-the-timing-feels-right  [https://perma.cc/ALR8-C5RE ]. 

487. See supra Section I.B.1. ù

488. Omarova, supra note 33, at 106. 

489. Katie Kummer, Christopher Woolard, Fatima Hassan-Szlamka & Danielle Grennan, What Actions Can Drive Responsible Innovation in Digital Assets?, Ernst & Young (Sept. 30, 2022), https://www.ey.com/en_gl/public-policy/what-actions-can-drive-responsible-innovationin-digital-assets  [https://perma.cc/DRC7-M3DZ ]. 

490. Alessandra Carolina Rossi Martins, A Sandbox for the U.S. Financial System, Regul. Rev. (Aug. 19, 2021), https://www.theregreview.org/2021/08/19/rossi-martins-sandbox-for-usfinancial-system  [https://perma.cc/7TR2-Y48E ]. 

491. Wyoming offers a charter for Special Purpose Depository Institutions that are authorized to take uninsured deposits and conduct other financial activities (except for lending). Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 13-12-103 (West 2020); 021-20 Wyo Code R. (LexisNexis 2023). New York’s BitLicense regime requires virtual currency companies to receive approval of new products and services, submit affiliates to examination, and comply with consumer-protection and anti-fraud requirements. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. 23, §§ 200.10, 200.13(d) & 200.19 (2015). The OCC has created a Special Purpose National Bank (SPNB) charter for fintech companies that are not required to obtain FDIC insurance. 12 C.F.R. § 5.20(e)(1)(i) (2022); Comptroller’s Licensing Manual Supplement: Considering Charter Applications from Financial Technology Companies, Off. of the Comptroller of the Currency 2-3 (2018), https://www.occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/comptrollers-licensing-manual/files/pub-considering-charter-apps-from-fin-tech-co.pdf  [https://perma.cc/GZS8-6E46 ]. 

492. Saule T. Omarova, Dealing with Disruption: Emerging Approaches to Fintech Regulation, 61 Wash. U.J.L. & Pol’y 25, 37-52 (2020) (discussing “regulatory sandboxes” and special fintech charters). 

493. See, e.g., Chairman McHenry’s Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act Approved by the House Financial Services Committee, Davis Polk (Aug. 9, 2023), https://www.davispolk.com/insights/clientupdate/chairman-mchenrys-clarity-payment-stablecoins-act-approved-house-financial  [https://perma.cc/G7HE-6HH8 ]; Press Release, Sen. Comm. on Banking, Hous., & Urban Affs., Toomey Introduces Legislation to Guide Future Stablecoin Regulation (Dec. 21, 2022), https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/toomey-introduces-legislation-toguide-future-stablecoin-regulation  [https://perma.cc/KQ9V-SPKP ]; Howell E. Jackson, Timothy G. Massad & Dan Awrey, How We Can Regulate Stablecoins Now—Without Congressional Action, 1-2 (Brookings Inst., Hutchins Ctr. Working Paper No. 76, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/WP76-Massad-et-al_v4.pdf  [https://perma.cc/JLE6-UCSY ]. 

494. See Omarova, supra note 33 (discussing technology-driven structural changes in the financial system and the regulatory challenges they pose). 

495. See supra Part V. 

496. See, e.g., 12 U.S.C. § 1851(f)(1) (2018)