The UK today directly removed the individual holding limit for stablecoins.

When I saw the news, my first reaction was that regulation was loosening, but after reading the entire set of rules, I realized they just changed the measurement from how much can be stored in each person's wallet to how large a stablecoin can grow.

Previously, individuals could hold up to 20k pounds, and companies up to 10 million pounds. Now, all that is canceled and replaced with a temporary issuance cap of 4 billion pounds for each major pound-stablecoin, allowing users to use it freely, with risk managed by the issuer.

This is quite clever. Before, there was concern that large amounts of bank deposits would flow into stablecoins, so they limited individual caps, which resulted in platforms having to check balances daily and exchanges monitoring limits. Payments, which should be simple, became complicated. Now, by allowing users to hold freely and shifting the scale risk to the issuers, operations are much smoother.

Reserve requirements have also been adjusted: 70% can be invested in short-term UK government bonds, and 30% must be kept in interest-free accounts at the central bank. The 70% provides some income for issuers, while the 30% ensures that funds can be quickly redeemed when needed. The larger the scale, the more interest-free funds there are, and the growth benefits and responsibilities are shared.

Recently, when I look at @worldlibertyfi's USD1, I always think about this layer. Currently, the supply of USD1 is around 4.7 billion USD, and real lending is already in use—not just issuing tokens and trading.

Of course, this UK policy isn't directly related to USD1. It's a dollar-stablecoin, and not a systemically important British pound coin. But it acts like a mirror: when stablecoins grow from small toys into significant financial tools affecting bank deposits and credit flows, regulators are no longer just concerned about whether you'll lose money, but whether the entire financial system might suddenly lose a big chunk of liquidity.

Previously, I wondered whether canceling the cap was good news or bad news. Now, I more often ask: when a stablecoin truly grows up—will it be the day its market cap surges, or the day it begins to bear systemic responsibility for that scale? What do you think? Are stablecoins becoming more like infrastructure, or are they still just toys in the crypto world?