Laying The Rails: CPAs, Stablecoins and the Future of the Global Financial System

October 23, 2026

Among the many “deals” announced by the U.S. administration since President Trump was re-elected in 2025, one of the most consequential for the global economy has nothing to do with tariff rates.

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. and the U.K. issued a joint statement on stablecoins. The first output from the U.S.-UK Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, the framework aligns the U.K. and the U.S. approach to stablecoins and digital assets, creating a strong “alliance” on the regulation of digital currencies between two of the globe’s most important financial centres: New York and London.

The framework was the latest in a series of announcements from governments around the world signalling that stablecoins have moved from a niche interest of cryptocurrency enthusiasts to the “rails” on which the financial system of the future will be built. And if Canada is not prepared for it, it could cost the economy over $600 billion in investible capital.

The U.S Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act and the E.U.’s Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA regulation have established a regulatory regime for stablecoins in both jurisdictions. The Canadian government followed suit with the Stablecoin Act, which received Royal Assent in March of 2026, establishing the rules by which stablecoin issuers will operate in Canada and the Bank of Canada’s oversight role.

Canada’s stablecoin framework was guided by four public policy priorities:

1. Enabling innovation and competition
2. Protecting consumers
3. Aligning Canada’s stablecoin regulation with other stablecoin regulations, including the U.S. and Europe
4. Safeguarding financial stability by ensuring that stablecoins retain their peg to fiat currencies and maintain sufficient reserve assets.

If digital assets and tokenized ledgers represent the future of the financial system, CPAs will play a key role in laying the “rails.” Nothing less than the future of the global financial system, as well as Canada and the profession’s place within it, is at play.

To help CPAs, business leaders and enterprises understand how innovations like stablecoin and tokenization are transforming the global economy, CPA Ontario has established a new task force, co-chaired by Jim Balsillie, FCPA, FCA and Carol Wilding, FCPA, FCA, president and CEO of CPA Ontario. The task force, which includes leaders from business, technology and public policy, is initially focusing on releasing an Innovation Economy Playbook in early 2027, alongside supporting professional development courses. The Playbook will provide practical guidance on IP, intangible assets, standards, policy and AI governance, including a chapter on tokenization, unified ledgers and stablecoin.  

What makes a stablecoin “stable”?

To understand why stablecoins represent such a seismic shift in the global financial system, you first must understand what a stablecoin is and how it differs from other cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

The term “crypto-asset” covers a wide swathe of instruments that rely on the blockchain, or peer-to-peer networks and a decentralized ledger powered by cryptography, to secure and record transactions. It’s used to describe everything from cryptocurrencies to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and stablecoins.

The blockchain has led to the proliferation of digital assets from the well-established, such as the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, to so-called “meme coins”. Cryptocurrencies are widely considered a speculative asset, with their value depending on price swings and reliant on market sentiment.

The true value of the blockchain, tokenization and unified ledgers is the potential of creating a system of instantaneous financial transactions without the necessity of a third-party verification. The ledger itself is a shared utility: a programmable, multi-party record of claims that settles, reconciles and reports in a single operation. Real world assets, from real estate to bank accounts, can be converted into “tokens,” or blockchain enabled strings of code, and listed on a ledger.

Stablecoin and stablecoin transactions are one example of a “tokenized asset”. However, unlike other cryptocurrencies, where the value of the coin is free-floating, the value of a stablecoin is pegged on a one-to-one basis to highly liquid and low-risk assets, including gold, short-term government treasuries or cash.

For the majority of stablecoins, that asset is a fiat currency, with 97% of stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar. Stablecoin issuers are expected to have enough fiat currency on hand to redeem stablecoins at par value on demand.

The pegging to assets is only one side of the “stablecoin”. The other is regulation. Through the GENIUS Act, MiCA, and the Stablecoin Act, governments have established a regulatory “floor” that includes strong anti-money laundering and terrorist financing controls, as well as qualified custody and segregation, requiring reserve assets to be isolated from the operational funds of the issuer.

In addition to the rules listed above, under Canadian, U.S. and E.U. legislation stablecoin issuers must publicly provide verification of reserve backing from registered public accountants or independent auditors.

As Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada put it in a speech last year, stablecoins “overcome the price volatility of other cryptocurrencies while taking advantage of the same technology.”

The total value of stablecoin payments has been estimated at about $400 billion annually, relatively modest when set against the $200 trillion global payments market. However, it is expected to grow rapidly. By 2030 it could be worth between $2 trillion and $4 trillion, according to some forecasts.

For the world of international finance, stablecoins are delivering on the long-held promise of blockchain technology.

Riding the Rails or Building the Railway?

Why are the U.S., the U.K., the E.U., and Canada so focused on writing the rules for stablecoins? Because whoever writes the rules wins the game, and this game is winner take all.

In a Substack article published in September of last year, John Ruffolo, FCPA, FCA, a former global tax leader at Deloitte and founder and managing partner of Maverix Private Equity, argued that the regulation of stablecoin is tantamount to the “invisible rails” on which digital money will travel across borders.

As stablecoins are tied to fiat currencies, whoever establishes the rules for stablecoins will have their fiat currency become the default currency for the financial system of the future. That government will reap the benefits as stablecoins take on a growing share of the international financial system.

“Every time Canadians use a U.S. stablecoin, we’re funding U.S. government debt, enriching U.S. institutions, and exporting our financial data south of the border,” Ruffolo wrote. “If U.S. stablecoins really take off, our economy will become even more a customer of theirs. U.S. stablecoins currently have 99 per cent of the global market for stablecoins and so they enjoy a solid first-mover advantage.”

Imagine if just 5% of Canadian deposits (C$135 billion) left our banking system for U.S. stablecoins, he added. “Because of the money multiplier, that could erase C$675 billion in lending capacity (assuming a conservative 5x multiplier). That’s money that won’t fund mortgages, business loans, or infrastructure.”

The C.D. Howe Institute echoed Ruffolo’s sense of urgency, arguing that the U.S. GENIUS Act poses potential risks to Canada’s monetary sovereignty and payment-system oversight.

“Without a clear domestic framework, Canadian payments could increasingly migrate to foreign-issued stablecoins and exchange platforms, weakening regulatory control and complicating monetary policy transmission,” Peter MacKenzie and Mark Zelmer wrote in January.

Canada’s Stablecoin Act is an important first step in establishing a Canadian-made “rail system” for stablecoin, one in which the Canadian dollar is used as the fiat currency backstop for stablecoin issuers. However, it still leaves critical design choices to the implementation phase, they added.

While the Act designates the Bank of Canada as the primary regulator and establishes baseline requirements for reserves and redemption, detailed rules on eligible assets, operational standards, insolvency treatment, and coordination with securities regulators remain unresolved, they said.

The framework agreement between the U.S. and the U.K. should be seen as another warning that unless Canada moves quickly, we will find ourselves passengers riding on rails built by other jurisdictions.

Canada is picking up the pace. The payment system, including a real-time, 24x7 payment system, called ‘Real-Time Rail’, is due to go live in the fourth quarter of this year. Despite the progress, Ruffolo urged the Canadian government to build a “payments rail as safe as cash”, including real-time dashboards and frequent public reporting to make stablecoins transparent and provide independent assurance.

Audits, Frameworks and the Future of Finance.

On August 14, 2026 Tether, the largest and most popular stablecoin issuer in the world with its flagship token, USDT, holding market capitalization of over $180 billion, announced that KPMG U.S. had audited their 2025 financial statements.

Independent assurance reports verifying reserve backing, token counts and assets at fair market value are seen as a key plank for regulating the issuance of stablecoins. The U.S. GENIUS Act requires large issuers with more than $50 billion in issuance to publish an audited financial statement in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). (Sec. 4). According to Canada’s Stablecoin Act, applicants looking to be added to the Bank of Canada’s Issuers list need to include a statement from a Chartered Professional Accountant as well as “the applicant’s governance policy, risk management policy, data security policy and recovery and resolution policy.” (C-15, s.17 (2) (h)).

The viability of a stablecoin system will depend on the work of CPAs, as global markets always have. Audits performed by CPAs will provide investors, issuers and governments with the confidence that they need to make stablecoins a viable method for cross-border transactions. As issuers look to the profession to ensure they are compliant, there is an opportunity for CPAs to help lay the rails for a new financial system.

To seize it, CPAs will have to challenge some long-held assumptions. Payments made by stablecoins will be represented on unified ledgers, which are a shared utility that rests outside the four walls of an enterprise. They will represent shared financial infrastructure, instead of a privately owned financial tool. This transformation will impact everything from reconciliation and ownership rights to internal controls and how value is created.

That means CPAs will need to understand and explain the principal categories of digital assets, from stablecoins to tokenized Real World Assets (RWAs) to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). They will need to understand how current International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AASB) guidance applies to the recognition, measurement and disclosure of these assets, and understand the implications for governance, risk, tax and anti-money laundering measures.

Conclusion:

It’s been almost twenty years since the release of the bitcoin white paper that began the blockchain revolution. Like all revolutions, it has been a process of fits and starts. The flurry of legislation and the new agreement between the U.S. and the U.K. is the clearest signal that the technology has moved out of its infancy, and that we are entering a new frontier in global finance.

Traversing this new frontier will be digital rails forged from data, rather than steel. Laying the rails will require the work of CPAs prepared to embrace transformation without losing sight of the fact that every financial system, no matter how innovative, is built on trust.

Preparing for the implications of blockchain, tokenization and emerging digital infrastructure to help Canadian enterprises commercialize, grow and scale will be a key chapter in CPA Ontario’s Innovation Economy Playbook. Created by CPA Ontario’s Competitiveness and Value Creation Task Force, this playbook will launch in early 2027 to build capacity among CPAs, business leaders and Canadian enterprises so that they can create, capture, protect and scale value in the innovation economy. John Ruffolo, FCPA, FCA is a member of the Task Force. Read more here.