For those who remember the 1970s, the recent growth of stablecoins may bring to mind the early, Wild West days of the Eurodollar market. Back then, the emergence of cheap offshore funding allowed US banks to circumvent domestic regulations and associated capital costs.

The Federal Reserve initially ignored the rise of this shadow currency system, which grew by more than tenfold in that turbulent decade. That proved to be a mistake. The explosion of Eurodollars fuelled a sharp rise in the