Stablecoins Will Both Replace and Entrench the Dollar
As people outside the US increasingly use cryptocurrency such as Tether, their economies will become increasingly “dollarized.”
The new monetary world order.
Photographer: Justin Tallis/AFP
Every half century or so, the world monetary order undergoes a profound change. We may now be witnessing the latest monetary revolution: the rise of dollar-backed stablecoins, which could entrench the dominance of the US currency for another several decades if not more.
Some history: The late 19th century brought a unified gold standard to much of the world. The end of World War II brought the Bretton Woods system, which ended in 1971 with a new era of fiat money and floating exchange rates. Crypto was invented in 2008, but the new monetary system that it enables has not become clear until recently.