IMF Director Believes Crypto Woes are Unfinished, Warns of Additional Sell-Offs

In an interview with Yahoo Finance on Wednesday, the director of Monetary and Capital Markets for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Tobias Adrian, warned about more crypto crashes and failures, with further selling pressure on the horizon. Adrian warned:

“We could see further selloffs both in crypto assets and in risky asset markets, like equities.”

The IMF director further warned that “there could be further failures of some of the coin offerings — in particular, some of the algorithmic stablecoins that have been hit most hard, and there are others that could fail.” Adrian also expects to see the crypto market decline further as the global economy struggles with a recession.

In May, the Terra suite of crypto tokens suffered a meltdown, with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler warning that several other “crypto tokens will fail.”

IMF Director not Confident in Stablecoins, Predicts Shuttering

The German economist also warned about the possibility of fiat-backed Stablecoins suffering de-peggings, a point both Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve had repeated.

Citing Tether (USDT), the IMF director claimed: “There’s some vulnerability there because they’re not backed one to one.” He explained that some Stablecoins “are backed by somewhat risky assets,” adding “it is certainly a vulnerability that some of the stablecoins are not fully backed by cash-like assets.”

However, Adrian does not see the threat reaching similar events that occurred in the 2008 financial crisis, explaining:

“What was very worrisome in the 2008 crisis was that the banks were highly exposed to the shadow banks, and we don’t see this exposure of banks to shadow banks through crypto at the moment.”

Also, the IMF executive noted that regulators are there to protect investors’ interests and the financial system. Citing the numerous tokens in existence today, he noted:

“Regulating the coins themselves is going to be difficult, but regulating the entry points such as exchanges and wallet providers to invest in those coins that’s something that is very concrete and very feasible.”