Project Agora, led by the BIS and seven central banks, aims to create a unified, programmable financial ledger combining tokenized commercial bank deposits with wholesale central bank money — challenging the role of stablecoins in regulated finance. The initiative provides a credible, regulated alternative to private stablecoins for cross-border and institutional payments, potentially redefining how programmable money is used without relying on crypto-native infrastructure. The interplay between Project Agora’s outcomes and the potentially broader integration of stablecoins across the U.S. market could represent a potential inflection point in the evolution of digital money. While stablecoins offer speed and global reach, their lack of regulation and transparency invites scrutiny, and Project Agora raises the bar by embedding compliance and trust into digital money systems, pressuring stablecoins to evolve or risk obsolescence in institutional finance. Project Agora is seeking to address the wholesale heart of cross-border systems. By offering tokenized central bank money alongside commercial tokens on a shared digital infrastructure, banks may be able to crowd out private stablecoins for interbank and institutional transfers, without ceding oversight or public trust. Agora doesn’t kill stablecoins. But by offering a credible, supervised alternative, it raises the bar, forcing private issuance to compete on compliance, resilience and institutional usability rather than just speed.