Asian consumers could soon be paying with stablecoins

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

crypto stablecoins, which advertise tranquility in an ocean of tumult, have hardly lived up to their billing. Not one out of the 68 tokens studied by researchers at the Bank for International Settlements has managed to stay on its peg at all times.

Tether and USD Coin, the two largest players, reference their values 1:1 to the dollar, which enables them to act as a bridge of sorts between virtual and real-world representations of money. However, they have very little use outside the domain of crypto trading. For the broader population that doesn’t dabble in Bitcoin or Ether, keeping money in a bank that has deposit insurance has always been a safer option.
And yet, despite their well-known infirmities, more stablecoins keep coming. Regulators, too, seem to be more receptive to having them around, despite spectacular blowups like when TerraUSD breached its $1 price target in May 2022 and wiped out about $500 billion from cryptocurrency markets. Circle’s USD Coin briefly lost its peg during the US regional banking crisis of 2023.

Still, Hong Kong put out a proposal last week to license stablecoins. Singapore has already announced similar intentions. It’s very likely that before the end of 2024, the two financial centers will have come up with rules that US lawmakers have failed to adopt after three years of efforts.

Did you Know?

The world of cryptocurrencies is very dynamic. Prices can go up or down in a matter of seconds. Thus, having reliable answers to such questions is crucial for investors.

Both Asian jurisdictions seem to think that they can tame at least one sub-species of the unruly beast, the one that promises conversion into a fiat currency and backs that promise by maintaining liquid, safe