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What is the point of stable coins? Like why does anyone buy them? It seems to me that their initial value is 1usd per token (or some other fiat I guess) and th

• ezfe 7mo ago
  To take advantage of the ability to send money that way without the volatility
  • JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    Let’s be honest, it’s principally for illicit use, a tiny fraction of privacy folks and then a lot of people caught in between who don’t understand yield but want to bet on a volatile asset and have to use a stablecoin to go between. (Because the backers of the volatile thing are doing something illicit.)
    • Saline9515 7mo ago
      You are a decade late, nowadays stablecoins are commonly used in international trade. Most Alibaba sellers accept USDT nowadays, same for Indian ones.
      • JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        > stablecoins are commonly used in international trade For a rounding error value of "commonly," sure. (Catering to a financially-constrained market is good business. But it, by definition, will never be an important one in the grand scheme of things.)
        • Saline9515 7mo ago
          Something can be common, while not representing a large volume. And given the current aggressive policy of the US administration, you may soon have to find new payment rails for your international trading, depending on where you live. As always, things are certain until they aren't. Technological innovation always starts with fringe use cases, before becoming more widespread.
• fintech_eng 7mo ago
  They’re not really meant to go up in value. The main use is just having something dollar-like that you can move around easily. That’s useful outside the US, but also for plenty of people inside the US depending on what they’re doing; especially businesses that have a hard time getting or keeping normal banking (cough gambling, porn, weed cough). They’re handy inside crypto since you can move in/out of other assets without touching a bank. And sometimes you can earn yield on them, which is part of the appeal (with the usual “this can blow up” caveats). Also, there’s a reason every company wants to launch one: if you control the stablecoin, you get the float and the rails. That’s a pretty nice business if people actually use it. If you already have solid access to USD and don’t care about that flexibility, they’re less compelling. But yeah, not risk-free at all (depegs, issuer risk, etc). And honestly there probably isn’t much real need for dozens of slightly different stables beyond the business incentives.
  • amarant 7mo ago
    Ah, so we're basically battling the prudishness of VISA and MasterCard? That... Actually makes sense.. Which is a rare feat for crypto!
    • Saline9515 7mo ago
      Stablecoins present less frictions, have cheaper transaction costs and less intermediaries susceptible to block them. It greatly increases the velocity of money.
      • amarant 7mo ago
        What utterly horrendous payment solutions are you using that have more friction than crypto? The ones I use are several orders of magnitude less friction and most are 100% free. The ones that do have a cost (for recipients outside Scandinavia basically) are still way, waay cheaper than crypto transactions.
        • abigail95 7mo ago
• stevage 7mo ago
  I think the idea is if you're attempting to actually use crypto in the way that you would normally use money (ie, to buy/sell stuff) then you don't want the volatility. So in theory, it takes away the volatility while living within the crypto ecosystem. But obviously...things happen. Just like cash is usually relatively non-volatile, but financial crashes happen.
• mememememememo 7mo ago
  Why have cash? A: as an intermediary between better uses of money (buy cool stuff or invest) So why use stablecoins and not use cash? When you want to quickly convert to/from a token (60 second not 6 days), but for a short period have a stable value. Or you want to avoid banks. I.e. trading, gambling, drug deals, money laundering, etc.