Stablecoins

From PreparingYou
Revision as of 13:51, 14 February 2025 by Calebeaton (talk | contribs) (Created page with "The fundamental problem with stablecoins is that they are tied to the USD, a fiat currency known to be losing its value at roughly 10% per year. Other problems include the fact that you can't self-custody, i.e. the keys can't be buried in your backyard. Nevertheless, for most of the world, stablecoins (specifically Tether) are a godsend because the fiat currency of their countries are so much worse than USD. Everybody outside the US wants USD. Gresham's Law: "Bad money...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The fundamental problem with stablecoins is that they are tied to the USD, a fiat currency known to be losing its value at roughly 10% per year. Other problems include the fact that you can't self-custody, i.e. the keys can't be buried in your backyard.

Nevertheless, for most of the world, stablecoins (specifically Tether) are a godsend because the fiat currency of their countries are so much worse than USD. Everybody outside the US wants USD. Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." In other words, when there are two forms of currency in circulation, one that is of lesser intrinsic value (bad money) will be used in transactions, while the more valuable currency (good money) will be hoarded or exported.

So Tether will not only help stretch out USD's survival, but will also make USD even more dominant around the world.

Adam Curry nicely breaks down how Stablecoins work, Tether, and the likely future of the US Digital Dollar system in this 5-minute segment from the Joe Rogan show.



25-minute segment of a roundtable discussion in which Bitcoiners think through the impact of Tether on 140 different fiat currencies and the circuitous journey which will ultimately lead to Bitcoin.

The bottom line is that Tether will be a huge simplification of the USD system by removing banks, weekends, banking holidays, credit cards, and dozens of other unnecessary middlemen from transactions. Tether will also benefit the world be removing the inefficiencies and complexities of 140 different fiat currencies. But even longer term, people should be aware that Tether/USD continues to be a melting ice cube as a fiat currency. For anything other then day-to-day transactions, people should consider moving value into the harder, non-country-specific, equally convenient protocol/currency/commodity of Bitcoin.