#数字货币市场洞察 The Bank of England recently made a big move—it conducted a “stress test rehearsal” for the private credit and private equity sectors. Simply put, they want to see in advance whether these financial giants will shatter at the slightest touch if something really goes wrong.

Why so nervous? Because the risks are deeply hidden. In recent years, private credit has ballooned, becoming a massive shadow banking system operating outside the traditional regulatory scope. Private equity is similar—lots of money, huge scale, but it’s hard to figure out what’s actually inside. Regulators’ biggest fear now is that if liquidity dries up or the portfolio companies start to blow up en masse, the whole system could collapse in an instant.

This kind of simulation is not just for show. The central bank wants to thoroughly understand the chains of risk contagion—will a wave of fund redemptions trigger panic selling? Will those intertwined leveraged financings tumble like dominoes, spreading from one asset class to another? All these scenarios will be dissected in practical stress tests.

What’s even more crucial: as cryptocurrencies and DeFi continue to infiltrate the traditional financial system, figuring out whether old-school risk management frameworks can still hold up under these new shocks is becoming increasingly urgent. The contingency plans being designed for private markets today might very well be used tomorrow to respond to systemic risks triggered by digital assets.

At the end of the day, the Bank of England wants to defuse those hidden time bombs before the next real crisis hits. After all, nobody wants to realize the fire extinguisher should have been replaced only when the flames are already at the doorstep.