I think the most disruptive thing about stablecoins is the ability to opt-into your monetary system of choice.

It's hard for the average non-US person to opt-into the US financial system. Sure, they could hold dollars in banks, but local monetary policy can nix that privilege at anytime by imposing foreign exchange controls. It's happened before, in some of the largest economies in the world: China in 2015, India in 2013, Argentina in 2011.

The current way users solve this problem requires a lot of resources. That's why you usually only see rich people have Cayman accounts, Canadian real estate, and shell companies in Panama. Stablecoins on permissionless blockchains make this process 100x more accessible for the average person.

So yes, stablecoins currently let you circumvent regulation.

But regulation can be a prison where you can pay to be free.

So what happens when it costs nothing to get out of jail? What kind of strains do this place on economies that people escape, as well as the economies that people join?

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

▲

thisgoesnowhere 6 days ago | parent [-]

> But regulation can be a prison where you can pay to be free.

As opposed to no regulation where you can't? I don't understand this sentiment at all.

▲

davidlee1435 6 days ago | parent [-]

Right now, the stability of your currency is mostly dictated by where you were born

My point is stablecoins give you choice to opt out of that. The only way to opt out before was very expensive

▲

XorNot 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is as wrong as everytime someone says "the benefit of Bitcoin is you can just walk all your assets across the border!"

It fundamentally misunderstands how foreign exchange works, or how government backed currency works.

You cannot "opt out" of the local currency: period. It is the only currency which can extinguish tax obligations. And even if it wasn't government backed, you can't trade in a currency no one wants in the first place.

This should be trivially obvious from the observation that how much water a gold bar in the desert buys you is going to be pretty highly variable.

▲

davidlee1435 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Just because badly managed local currency is required for taxes doesn't mean that most people in that country _must want_ to hold it. Plenty of trivially obvious evidence to the contrary

I assume you've never experienced hyper-inflation? If you have, do you think it's fair that you were forced into a hyper-inflationary currency? And, if given the means to, do you think it's fair that people _should_ have the ability to choose?

▲

XorNot 5 days ago | parent [-]

That's not the point: the point is "how do you buy the coin in the first place?"

If you live in a place then you have to trade in whatever the local currency is. You didn't "opt in" to a particular stable coin: someone has to be willing to accept that specific coin as payment.

And they can't just exchange it to another: the exchange has to want to sell that coin in exchange for the coin you transact with.

And to interact locally with the government, you need someone who is willing to sell coins in exchange for the currency you don't want.

In practical alternate market economies, the only currency which trades tends to be USD and the exchange rate will be bad because it's a grey market. I would go further and posit that where crypto has any impact, it's people because it's a window into being able to hold USD.

Certainly the only question anyone asks about Tether is whether they actually have the USD to cover their position: no one wants a Yuan based see stable coin.

	▲	davidlee1435 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think it's pretty easy to buy the coins, regardless of government intervention. Countries (ie China, Nigeria) have tried and failed to restrict access to cryptocurrencies. Whether you get good execution is a separate issue- my point is that stablecoins enable you to execute these trades in the first place. Agree with the posit- stablecoins grew a lot during periods of strict monetary policy (ie capital outflow from China starting in 2015, hyperinflation in 2023). Note my original post said disruptive, not good. Meant it in the truest sense of the word; both good and bad comes out of it.

▲

whimsicalism 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

you’ll note that many countries that impose capital controls have large informal economies. this is not a question of theory, there are many countries where millions of people do hold significant sums in dollars and other foreign currencies, regardless of whether they fulfill tax obligation. enough people do this and you also get the informal economy transacting in these currencies. you are “proving” the non-existence of something that in actuality is practiced by millions of people every single day.

▲

Yizahi 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And now western countries can also have ultra corrupt, opaque and controlled by a small oligarchy group currency system, just like some 3rd world countries. Yay, progress :)