The promise and the perils of stablecoins
The list of potential stablecoin issuers is expanding beyond the incumbents such as Tether Holdings, Circle and MakerDAO.
These days, millions of overseas Filipino workers send money home using stablecoins – digital currencies pegged one for one to major fiat currencies like the US dollar, which gives them a stable value – through fintech apps such as Coins.ph and PDAX. The recipients instantly convert these funds into Philippine pesos via local e-wallets, at a fraction of the cost of traditional remittance services. In Nigeria, platforms like Chipper Cash and Flutterwave enable users to bypass unreliable local banks, receive stablecoin remittances and access US dollar equivalent funds, despite currency instability at home.
From Asia to Africa to Latin America, stablecoins are no longer a tech curiosity. They are emerging as a lifeline, a disruptor and the new gold standard for global money transfers.
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