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IMF Says Crypto Boom Poses Challenges to Financial Stability
The organization says more regulation is needed.
Updated May 11, 2023, 6:32 p.m. Published Oct 1, 2021, 3:05 p.m.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said more regulation is needed as the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry poses a number of challenges and risks to financial stability.
- The industry suffers from a lack of robust operational, governance and risk practices, according to a blog post on the organization’s website.
- Those shortcomings put consumers at risk, the authors wrote, suggesting that some crypto tokens that have failed to survive were “likely created solely for speculation purposes or even outright fraud.”
- “The (pseudo) anonymity of crypto assets also creates data gaps for regulators and can open unwanted doors for money laundering, as well as terrorist financing,” they wrote.
- The authors highlighted this month’s Global Financial Stability Report, another IMF report that describes in detail a number of the risks posed by the unregulated cryptocurrency market.
- The adoption of crypto assets is also difficult to measure, and it is possible that emerging markets and developing economies may be leading the way.
- Regulators worldwide need to act together on crypto to take action that will allow “the benefits to flow but, at the same time, also address the vulnerabilities.”
Read more: The IMF’s Self-Serving Case Against Bitcoin
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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CFTC's acting chief Pham poised to go to crypto firm MoonPay once Mike Selig lands
The leader of the derivatives regulator is planning to join the crypto industry as the CFTC and other federal regulators work on policies to benefit the sector.
What to know:
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting Chairman Caroline Pham confirmed again that she's heading to crypto firm MoonPay when the Senate confirms her replacement and he's sworn in.
- President Donald Trump's CFTC chair nominee Mike Selig was set for a Senate vote Wednesday evening, according to that chamber's schedule.
- Selig, currently an SEC official, would arrive at the CFTC just as several of Pham's crypto initiatives have gone live.
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