The Stablecoin Issue: Should Stability Undermine Scalability

The current cryptocurrency landscape, although fast-growing, is still noticeably far from being the inadvertent choice in finance for the average Jane and Joe. Among the few barriers to entry that linger in the crypto space for newbies, price fluctuation (volatility) is a key hurdle to overcome. To put this in perspective, cryptocurrencies can fluctuate in price by upwards of 16% in a single day! What if there was a form of money that was as stable as regular fiat currency but can still be used as a cryptocurrency? This would solve several challenges like not having to liquidate all holdings to your bank account and possibly being liable to pay a higher short-term gain tax. For those reasons, and more, “stablecoins” came into existence. What Are Stablecoins? Stablecoin is very much like a regular cryptocurrency but with a stable value. That means while a stablecoin lives on a blockchain, can be decentralized, and functions in a peer-to-peer ecosystem, its price is theoretically resistant to the crypto market volatility. That’s why the collective market capitalization of all stablecoins has quickly grown to a whopping USD 180 billion. Now, a stablecoin may derive its price stability using different approaches. Some of them are pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and commodities like the US dollar and gold while others are pegged to a mix of crypto, fiat, and commodities. These stablecoins are together termed collateralized st...