Working Paper
Runs and Flights to Safety: Are Stablecoins the New Money Market Funds?
Macchiavelli, Marco; Eisenbach, Thomas M.; Anadu, Kenechukwu E.; Cipriani, Marco; La Spada, Gabriele; Wang, J. Christina; Huang, Catherine; Malfroy-Camine, Antoine; Azar, Pablo D.; Landoni, Mattia (2024-03-26)
Similar to the more traditional money market funds (MMFs), stablecoins aim to provide investors with safe, money-like assets. We investigate similarities and differences between these two investment products. Like MMFs, stablecoins suffer from “flight-to-safety” dynamics: we document net flows from riskier to safer stablecoins on days of crypto-market stress and estimate a discrete “break-the-buck” threshold of $1, below which stablecoin redemptions accelerate. We then focus on two specific stablecoin runs, in 2022 and 2023, showing that the same flight-to-safety dynamics also ...
Supervisory Research and Analysis Working Papers , Paper SRA 23-02

Working Paper
Runs and Flights to Safety: Are Stablecoins the New Money Market Funds?
Anadu, Kenechukwu E.; Azar, Pablo D.; Cipriani, Marco; Eisenbach, Thomas M.; Huang, Catherine; Landoni, Mattia; La Spada, Gabriele; Macchiavelli, Marco; Malfroy-Camine, Antoine; Wang, J. Christina (2023-09-01)
Stablecoins and money market funds both seek to provide investors with safe, money-like assets but are vulnerable to runs in times of stress. In this paper, we investigate similarities and differences between the two, comparing investor behavior during the stablecoin runs of 2022 and 2023 to investor behavior during the money market fund runs of 2008 and 2020. We document that, similarly to money market fund investors, stablecoin investors engage in flight to safety, with net flows from riskier to safer stablecoins during run periods. However, whereas in money market funds, run risk has ...
Working Papers , Paper 23-11

Working Paper
Runs and Flights to Safety: Are Stablecoins the New Money Market Funds?
Macchiavelli, Marco; Eisenbach, Thomas M.; Anadu, Kenechukwu E.; Cipriani, Marco; La Spada, Gabriele; Wang, J. Christina; Huang, Catherine; Malfroy-Camine, Antoine; Azar, Pablo D.; Landoni, Mattia (2023-08-24)
Stablecoins and money market funds both seek to provide investors with safe, money-like assets but are vulnerable to runs in times of stress. In this paper, we investigate similarities and differences between the two, comparing investor behavior during the stablecoin runs of 2022 and 2023 to investor behavior during the money market fund runs of 2008 and 2020. We document that, similar to money market fund investors, stablecoin investors engage in flight-to-safety, with net flows from riskier to safer stablecoins during run periods. However, whereas in money market funds run risk has ...
Supervisory Research and Analysis Working Papers , Paper SRA 23-02