The Financial institution for Worldwide Settlements (BIS) has appointed Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, one of many world’s most influential economists on digital cash, as the following head of the BIS Innovation Hub, efficient March 2026.
The BIS stated Tuesday that Mancini-Griffoli will “lead work to discover technological options throughout the central financial institution neighborhood on innovation.” His mandate is predicted to incorporate ongoing work on central financial institution digital currencies (CBDCs), tokenized belongings and new types of market infrastructure.
Mancini-Griffoli at present serves because the assistant director within the Worldwide Financial Fund’s Financial and Capital Markets Division, the place he leads work on funds and currencies. He’s one of many IMF’s most distinguished voices advocating for regulated and publicly backed digital cash fashions and has beforehand warned concerning the dangers of unregulated stablecoins.
The appointment comes because the BIS Innovation Hub ramps up main tasks, increasing its affect throughout its world facilities. The Hub has develop into a venue for testing blockchain-inspired settlement techniques and digital foreign money prototypes.
For the crypto house, the transfer indicators that the BIS might steer digital asset innovation towards regulated tokenized cash, a path that would form how central banks assess personal blockchain infrastructure and stablecoins.
Incoming innovation chief championed artificial CBDCs
Mancini-Griffoli, who has been the IMF’s consultant to world coverage boards on CBDCs and funds, often argued that essentially the most steady path ahead lies in hybrid or public-backed preparations fairly than totally personal tokens.
In 2020, Mancini-Griffoli said {that a} artificial private-public partnership CBDC might empower the personal sector, reminiscent of blockchain-backed stablecoins, to innovate.
He championed the idea of artificial CBDCs, a mannequin during which personal establishments concern digital cash totally backed by central financial institution reserves, primarily mixing public-sector security with private-sector innovation.
He additionally supported tokenized monetary devices, however solely after they function inside a public-money structure that ensures systemic stability and settlement finality.
In September, Mancini-Griffoli argued via an essay that stablecoins carry structural dangers if not backed by secure belongings and robust governance.
He warned that poorly regulated issuers might expose customers to runs, liquidity mismatches and lack of worth.
Associated: JPMorgan, DBS eye deposit tokens as cross-bank various to stablecoins
BIS Innovation Hub’s high-profile experiments
The BIS Innovation Hub at present operates a number of high-profile digital foreign money experiments.
This contains the cross-border CBDC settlement community mBridge, the tokenized deposit infrastructure Agora and real-time funds and interoperable CBDC rails referred to as Undertaking Nexus.
These tasks display the BIS’s dedication to reimagining conventional finance with blockchain-inspired structure.
Beneath Mancini-Griffoli, the innovation hub is poised to speed up a number of high-impact initiatives, from cross-border fee networks to tokenized deposits and interoperable CBDCs.
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