I wholeheartedly agree that stablecoins will be a game-changer for the decentralized ecosystem. It is required for most applications of blockchain to achieve consumer adoption (decentralized hosting, tokenization of assets and securities, smart contracts that pay out money to security-token owners, etc.)

Some thoughts:

“This is often more readily evident in small sovereigns in Africa or Latin America as their currencies devalue or their economies fail”

It seems Argentina and Zimbabwe are repeatedly used as examples of countries with unstable money. It would be nice to hear about other countries that would benefit from a non-government currency. On another note, I believe that for Bitcoin (or even a stablecoin) to have a better chance at becoming a global currency, we need a good smartphone crypto wallet (Abra? Coinbase Wallet?) that is easy for people in these countries to use and onboard with, due to high smartphone penetration in developing nations.

“Fine, but you take counterparty risk when you do this. Tether is an example of this approach. Often the counterparties are opaque offshore entities with unclear governance.”

As Tether’s counterparty risk comes from potential corruption by the people managing it, I am curious if a Tether-like system would work if implemented by the U.S. government. This would not be a government-free form of currency of course, but I imagine that is the nature of stablecoins — it is tied to the government-backed USD (correct me if I am wrong). Unlike Bitcoin, stablecoins seem to be a play on purely the technical innovation of crypto. (For example, allowing website hosting by dropping a few crypto-dollars that accesses a decentralized network of storage and hosting space, instead of having to pay AWS. This requires micropayments, which is only possible with a cryptocurrency, and preferably a stable one)