Standards body

International Monetary Fund

Created in 1944 and accountable to 191 member countries, the Fund lends with a capacity of about $1tn and in April 2026 published Tokenized Finance, which treats tokenisation as a reallocation of trust from regulated intermediaries towards shared infrastructure.

Kind Standards body

Jurisdiction Global

Founded 1944

Stories filed 2

The profile

Created in 1944 and accountable to 191 member countries, the Fund monitors members' economies and advises on policy, lends with a capacity of about $1tn drawn from member quotas, and provides technical assistance. Its April 2026 note Tokenized Finance, by financial counsellor Tobias Adrian, treats tokenisation as a reallocation of trust from regulated intermediaries towards shared infrastructure and programmable logic rather than as an efficiency gain, and separates three forms of digital money: tokenized bank deposits, regulated stablecoins and wholesale central bank digital currency. It identifies fragmentation across incompatible platforms, faster propagation of stress, procyclical automation and threats to monetary sovereignty from global stablecoins as the main risks, and argues central banks must adapt liquidity facilities to markets that settle around the clock.

Frameworks and functions

Surveillance: Monitoring of members' economic and financial developments and policy advice, the channel through which currency substitution by dollar tokens is assessed.
Lending: Balance-of-payments financing to members, with a lending capacity of roughly $1tn funded by quota subscriptions.
Capacity development: Technical assistance and training for finance ministries and central banks implementing policy and supervisory frameworks.