Bank of Canada to Host Gita Gopinath as Ottawa Drafts Rules for Fiat-Backed Stablecoins

The Bank of Canada is set to host Harvard economist Gita Gopinath on Thursday for a lecture on “The Policy Implications of Pseudonymous Stablecoins,” landing at a particularly consequential moment for Canada’s digital-money debate.

The timing matters because Ottawa has just moved into the rule-writing phase for fiat-backed stablecoins, publishing draft regulations on Oct. 24 that would put the central bank at the center of oversight. If finalized, the framework would make the Bank of Canada the supervisor for issuers of these digital tokens, which are designed to hold a steady value against a fiat currency such as the Canadian or U.S. dollar.

That makes Thursday’s lecture less notable for any specific argument Gopinath may make than for the policy backdrop surrounding it. Canada is no longer discussing stablecoins in the abstract. It is sketching out the rules under which they could operate.

The 2026 John Kuszczak Memorial Lecture is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 29, in Ottawa as part of the Bank of Canada’s Annual Economic Conference. Gopinath, a professor of economics and professor of public policy at Harvard University, is slated to speak from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Eastern. She previously served as chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2019 to 2022 and then as the IMF’s first deputy managing director until leaving in August 2025 to return to Harvard. Nicolas Vincent, a Bank of Canada deputy governor appointed to the full-time role effective Aug. 3, 2026, is scheduled to give introductory remarks.

The event will be webcast live in audio and video on the central bank’s website. But the Bank has also signaled that the session will offer limited follow-up for anyone hoping for a fuller public record: “The remarks will not be published,” according to its webcast advisory, and there will be no media availability or audience Q&A.

The lecture title points to a core regulatory problem. On public blockchains, transactions and wallet addresses are visible, but the person or company behind an address may not be. As the Financial Action Task Force has put it, “only the pseudonymous blockchain address is observable on-chain.” That creates practical questions for anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism-financing compliance, the ability to trace or freeze funds, consumer protection if redemptions come under stress, operational resilience and, at scale, how digital money might affect monetary-policy transmission.

Canada’s proposed rules take aim at several of those issues. According to the Canada Gazette, “The SCA would require stablecoin issuers to apply for registration with the Bank of Canada.” Issuers also would have to maintain one-to-one reserves in high-quality liquid assets denominated in the underlying fiat currency, offer redemption at par on demand, and meet governance, disclosure, reporting, data-security and AML/CFT requirements. The proposed rules are intended to take effect in fall 2027. The Bank says, “We administer Canada’s framework for fiat-backed stablecoins and supervise stablecoin issuers.”

The policy push comes as the global stablecoin market has grown to roughly $300 billion, and as other jurisdictions, including the European Union and the United States, have already moved ahead with dedicated rules. For Thursday’s event, though, the public window will be narrow: registration is closed, and the Bank says the lecture will be available only through its live webcast.