06 May 2021 | AtoZ Markets – The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) revolution has grown mainly in part to the adoption of stable coins. The introduction to the world of cryptocurrencies and tokens was a giant step in the history of finance. They did, however, have a significant drawback, they are highly volatile assets that swing daily and even hourly in their price. This was not a good characteristic for most investors.
An Introduction to Stable Coins
Enter the stable coins. These are assets pegged to a real-world good such as the USD dollar, a basket of currencies, gold, silver, etc. They can also be crypto collateralized assets where the price stability is achieved by a group of cryptocurrencies used as collateral.
This results in a coin or token (for a detailed explanation of the difference between coins and tokens, read all you need to know about investing in coins vs investing in tokens) that is stable and retains all of the benefits of the blockchain. This opens the possibility of these assets becoming a widely used store of value and medium of exchange—two of the three major characteristics of money.
Their growth has been nothing short of explosive. In just 2021, their combined market cap reached 7 billion dollars. They are perhaps the fastest-growing sector of the crypto economy as of now, and they show no sign of slowing.
This means big things for India. The country has many markets and the introduction of stable coins could revitalize them. Some of them are;
Remittances
On average, Indians receive sixty-nine billion dollars in payments each year. This does not come as a surprise as millions of Indians live outside the country and regularly send money to support the family at home. Yet, this figure has plateaued in recent years as high costs eat away the original amount. Here stable coins and the low transaction fees of blockchain can make a huge difference in the remittances market.
Peer-to-peer marketplaces
As the ban of cryptocurrencies by the Indian government, p2p has been one of the few viable ways to buy crypto. It poses a problem, though, as the transaction is waiting for confirmation by both parties, price movements can negatively impact the buyer of the crypto. This is because most cryptocurrencies are very volatile and can move up or down in minutes. Here, transactions in stable coins would eliminate this risk for both parties. An example of this is Remitano.
Small e-payments
As the world, and India, move to a cashless society small money transactions suffer. Many online payment processors charge large fees, and this makes a small number of transactions less viable. Here stable coins become invaluable as they run on the blockchain and can be transferred with meager fees for any amount of money.
5 Best Stable Coins in 2021 for the Indian Market
Every passing day sees the creation of new stable coins. Below is a list of the best stable coins of 2021 for the Indian market and the ones at the forefront of the innovation.
Tether (USDT)
The largest and most popular stable coin out there. In the Ethereum Blockchain alone, 5.7 billion USDT has been issued. Tether is a FIAT collateralized stable coin. This means it has the backing of the US dollars held by financial institutions across the world. They maintain a ratio with USD of 1 to 1, effectively this means each Tether in circulation out there should be supported by 1 dollar.
Now in the past, there have been questions regarding the dollar reserves backing Tether. Just because you hold one USDT does not mean you can exchange it for one physical dollar.
The main use of Tether is, as a way to lock gains from trading. Since cryptocurrency markets are very volatile, leaving trading profits in an asset like Ether is risky. It is much safer to convert all to Tether and retrieve it or keep in the account for future trades.
Check out this link to understand all about the stablecoin, Tether.
DAI (DAI)
Unlike Tether, DAI does not use FIAT as collateral. It is the first successful stable coin pegged to the dollar that uses a combination of other cryptocurrencies to achieve this stability. The basket is made of Ether, Basic Attention Token (BAT), USD Coin (USDC), and Wrapped Bitcoin. You can transform Wrapped Bitcoin into an ERC-20 token.
Essentially, in order to create DAI, a user creates a debt contract in the Maker DAO platform. He has to lock a combination of the four assets mentioned above equal to the value he wants to retrieve. The loan is over collateralized because the extra funds are used as a cushion to protect the value of DAI against the dollar.
This may sound like a losing proposition since you have to lock more than what you get as a result, but there are some advantages. DAI is a decentralized stable coin, meaning there are no financial institutions out there holding USD to keep DAI stable. Also, DAI is harder to regulate because its peg to the dollar is done on-chain outside any one country’s jurisdiction.
This has led to an explosion in the issuance of DAI. It has grown 334% percent in 2021 alone. Top crypto exchanges used it as their preferred stable coin, and some DeFi loan services offer DAI savings rate as high as 12% due to the great demand for the token.
USD Coin (USDC)
USDC is the second-largest stable coin by market cap with a total supply of 736.5 million dollars. Coinbase created it as their answer to Tether. It is a FIAT backed stable coin and this means it has the support of the dollar reserves and it is subject to regulation. It is a major asset for important DeFi protocols such as Compound and Aave.
The USDC is a very secure and liquid asset. The dollar reserves backing this token undergo monthly audits to ensure there are enough USD to maintain a one to one parity with USDC. This has made it popular as a FIAT on-ramp in crypto exchanges.
True USD (TUSD)
This stable coin is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network. Trust Token is the issuer of this coin. This platform specializes in creating stable coins and has offerings for coins backed by Canadian dollars, British pounds, and other major global currencies. TUSD has a total amount of Ether locked value at 2.5 million dollars. This makes it’s small in comparison to our other entries on the list.
It is also a FIAT-backed stable coin, and the peg to the USD is done off-chain by a central regulator. Escrow service and smart contracts does the issuance of TUSD. It is a very efficient method, but it does require KYC by the user.
PAXOS standard (PAX)
This is another FIAT backed stable coin issued under as an ERC-20 token. It has a total market cap of 250 million dollars and a reported trading volume of 150 million. In opposite to most of the industry, PAX decided to register with New York State banking law. This means the laws of the state govern it. This means more centralization, but with the trade-off of increased security and transparency. This has made it somewhat popular with institutional investors.
The world of DeFi and stable coins is perhaps the great success story of 2021 in the blockchain. Finally, you can use decentralized ledger technology to issue an asset with low volatility. This merges the advantages of price stability with the global reach of the blockchain. We are in the early stages of this revolution, and 7.3 billion in stable coins is tiny in comparison with the global market. But this explosive growth mostly happened in half a year. The future will bring much more.
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