Stablecoins might be the best thing to come out of cryptocurrency.

Stablecoins came out of the cryptocurrency craze as a way to get in and out of trades on crypto exchanges into a non-volatile token without having to touch fiat. If nothing else were to come out of it, we still gained something extremely valuable.

Stablecoins prove that we can use cryptocurrency/blockchain technology for real (government) currency.

Like cash was to silver and gold (not long ago cash was backed and redeemable for metals), stablecoins are to cash.

A stablecoin is simply a tokenized asset where one token is equal to exactly one unit of currency. eg: 1 USDC == $1. It stays at that price because it's backed up by actual units of the currency in custodial banks.

You can buy stablecoins with real currency (buy 1 token/coin for $1) and sell them back for the original currency whenever you want.

Stablecoins are not volatile, not speculative, just one-for-one with the underlying currency. While not as exciting as other cryptocurrencies, they are the most useful (for now anyways).

Why are stablecoins better than Cash?
For the same reason cash is disappearing: convenience and security. You can only use cash in person (not convenient) and you don't want to carry around a lot of it (not safe).

Why are stablecoins better than existing electronic money? This one will take a few tweets, so keep reading...

It's the first time there's ever been an interoperable digital currency. Currently, every payment service you use requires you to take money from your bank and send it to the service. The service then has their own closed system to account for your money and...

... it can only be used within their service. You can send money to your friends or businesses, but only if they also use the same proprietary system. The recipient then has to withdraw from that service into their bank accounts so they can...

... spend it in another way such as write a check, send a wire or send their money to another service to do the same as above. Each step of this in and out process is filled with middlemen.

Not to mention the fees charged along the way by all these different middlemen.

None of these services work together meaning I can't send my Venmo money to your Google Pay account. And I can't send my Google Pay money/tokens to my Revolut account.

Stablecoins remove all of those limitations. A payment service using stablecoins instead of their own proprietary representation of your money, could send your tokens directly to...

... any other payment service, or even directly to your own wallet (phone) that you have complete control over. With no middlemen in between. Which means faster and cheaper payments for you.

Stablecoins are global. There are no borders with stablecoins. Pay anyone, anywhere, with no middlemen.

Technically, you wouldn't even need a bank account if there were mass adoption of stablecoins.

An aside on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC): CBDCs are essentially a government issued stablecoin (or at least they should be). Some prior articles on that topic: https://medium.com/@treeder/why-we-need-central-bank-digital-currencies-cbdc-60c8660dae05 https://medium.com/swlh/the-top-4-requirements-for-central-bank-digital-currencies-c8c80d1aff55

In conclusion: stablecoins are awesome. It's how electronic money and payments should be. It's the internet version of cash. Even if you don't like cryptocurrency, stablecoins might change your mind.