> the positive effect of this is that we now have lots of different stable USD coins: Coinbase, Gemini, TrueUSD, Binance all have stable coins with a total cap of over $1bn.
"Stablecoins" are not stable. How many times do we have to learn this lesson in finance? The probability distribution underlying this stuff is not what stability proponents think it is. They will be stable until they aren't, and then they will blow up. Chasing stability in inherently unstable systems is a fool's game.
There are at least three reasons why USDC could become unstable:
1. Pegged value currencies are subject to Soros-breaking-the-Pound style attacks.
2. USDC is based on Ethereum, a first-generation cryptocurrency with numerous design flaws, at both the protocol and scripting language level. On top of that is an increasingly complex network of DeFi apps which can be exploited in sophisticated ways, as we saw with recent multi-part hack across several DeFi apps.
3. The US Dollar itself may be heading into a period of instability, given the massive US Govt debt and Federal Reserve operations.
You can stick your head in the sand and pretend stablecoins are stable, or you can acknowledge they’re more likely one more in a long history of financial folly.
"stable" currency isn't "stable" because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Populations grow, economies expand, efficiency increases. If I have $1 in 1919 when the GDP was $500B (and there were only 100M people) vs $16T (nominal), and I sock it in a drawer, I now own a much, much larger share of the US money economy than I did. I didn't earn it, I just held onto it. I accumulated value by virtue of "I got there first, sucks to be you."
There's no good reason to encourage value generation through inaction. That's one of the many good reasons to have abandoned deflationary currencies.
If you held a Scottish pound, you typically held a piece of paper from the bank that you got in return for making a deposit.
From the banks point of view, funds in checking accounts and funds issued as cash were pretty much the same. Just that the cash didn't pay interest, and you didn't know who had it. And it could get lost and never come back to you. (Though perhaps similar to people abandoning accounts sometimes?)
Holding the notes issued by a bank was equivalent to giving the bank a no interest loan. The bank itself invested the funds in loans to other companies. You forewent consumption and took on some risk.
Nominal GDP was remarkably stable over that time in Scotland. In reverse that means that one pound represented about the same share of total economic activity year after year. (The absolute, real amount of economic activity increased a lot.)
"Stablecoins" are not stable. How many times do we have to learn this lesson in finance? The probability distribution underlying this stuff is not what stability proponents think it is. They will be stable until they aren't, and then they will blow up. Chasing stability in inherently unstable systems is a fool's game.