The chief executive officer (CEO) for cryptocurrency exchange BInance.US says the government should turn to stablecoins for issuing coronavirus emergency payments. 

Catherine Coley, who previously served as head of XRP institutional liquidity at Ripple, published an op-ed on Mar. 22 arguing the government should use stablecoins for distributing emergency relief. 

Coley says a digital currency would allow people to receive aid without having to deliver the payments to a physical location, thereby increasing the risk of contracting or spreading the virus. 

She said, 

The government needs to look for ways to innovate the antiquated process of distributing checks by mail. In the interests of speed and safety, why not consider sending the stimulus in the form of stablecoins as a means to verify the transfer of assets?

Coley highlighted the immediate impact of issuing a digital currency, 

Because stablecoins can be distributed digitally, Americans would have immediate access to their funds, alleviating the need to spend hours at a bank to cash a check while removing oneself from a self-imposed quarantine.

The Binance.US CEO admitted there would be significant pushback to the use of a digital currency, due to a lack of understanding of crypto-assets, but that education could go hand-in-hand with the distribution. 

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