Stablecoin Infrastructure: Digital Asset Assurance and Regulation

As digital asset markets expand into critical infrastructure roles, powering tokenized green bonds, biodiversity credits, and cross-border environmental finance; the credibility of underlying monetary instruments becomes a systemic concern. Stablecoins, often treated as neutral payment rails, carry embedded risks when issued without verified reserves, deterministic redemption mechanisms, or legal safeguards around collateral use. These vulnerabilities allow greenwashed transactions to move at scale, bypassing traditional financial scrutiny while appearing compliant. New regulatory architectures, including the EU’s MiCA regime and proposed U.S. federal legislation, are imposing CPA-led attestation, segregation of reserves, and real-time reporting as baseline requirements. The AICPA assurance framework formalizes how auditors must validate blockchain data, smart contract logic, and off-chain custody controls, redefining what constitutes financial accountability in programmable systems. These changes mark a shift from discretionary issuance to verified monetary infrastructure, where environmental claims must be matched by provable financial backing. Without assurance, digital environmental finance risks becoming performative. With assurance, stablecoins can support traceable, auditable, and enforceable flows that align fiduciary duty with sustainability impact.