U.S. Treasury's Nellie Liang says tech firms should not issue stablecoins

Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang on Tuesday said technology firms should not issue stablecoins, or digital currencies that are pegged to sovereign currencies. Remember the President's Working Group in October said stablecoin issuers should be regulated as traditional depository institutions. Currently, stablecoins such as, Tether (USDT-USD) and USD Coin (USDC-USD), don't have an agreed-upon regulatory framework to function as a payments system. "We believe stablecoins as a payments instrument should not be issued by a technology firm," she told lawmakers during a virtual hearing regarding the President's Working Group on Financial Markets' report on stablecoins. This comes shortly after Meta Platforms' (NASDAQ:FB) Diem, a blockchain-based stablecoin payment system, sold its assets to crypto bank Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) for $182M at the end of January. Meanwhile, stablecoins "could potentially reduce the cost of payments," and yet there's "far too many cases of cryptocurrency fraud," Liang said. On Monday, the New York Federal