Foundational financial infrastructure is being rearchitected with new modern digital primitives - blockchain technology as a new global transparent ledger and currency backed stablecoins as the medium for value transfer. Stablecoins promise an instantaneous, inexpensive and unrestricted means to transact anytime and anywhere using a currency-backed token. Still, despite growing optimism, stablecoins today remain largely dependent on the same legacy financial rails it claims to disrupt, and the competitive advantages or value propositions vary between geographic regions and transaction types.
For people of a certain age, those four words have a Proustian quality. When I read them, I flashback to the summer of 1985. Isee Christopher Lloyd as Doc turn to Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and utter the now-famous line. I can smell the sweet sticky perfume of buttered popcorn, new Coke, and Skittles that hung in the air. I remember, too, my shock the following February whenPresident Reagan, with just the hint of a smirk, quoted the line in his State of the Union speech in an effort to urge young Americans, like me, to be optimistic about our collective future. All of that came rushing back a few nights back as I skimmed the highlights of the Federal Reserve’s 2022 triennial survey of payments in search of a way to explain a significant but seemingly overlooked change to the law of payments rolling out across the United States.
It's fair to say that businesses are still uncertain about how cryptocurrencies can benefit their bottom line and/or enhance customer experience. With many consumers still wary of anything blockchain-related, and markets well into our periodic "crypto winter" season, it's understandable that business leaders might wonder what they can expect from digital assets. Well, the good news is we are seeing the move from speculation to utility, and nowhere more is this obvious than with the emergence and meteoric rise of stablecoins.
To say these are rocky times in the crypto sector would be somewhat of an understatement. As the US discourse has become increasingly vitriolic, many fear thatUS innovation across Web3 will be hampered—but what innovation would be missed? There have been too many scams, rug pulls, blind celebrity endorsements, and snake oil salesmen. As Circle’s Jeremy Allaire noted during their Converge conference last year, this is the time to realize a better future for the sector.
