Stablecoins

For many crypto users the stablecoin is the account currency: it is what they trade against, what they park in between positions, and increasingly what they send across borders. A token that says it is worth one dollar is only as good as the mechanism behind that promise, and the mechanisms differ a great deal. Some hold cash and short-term Treasury bills at a regulated custodian, some lock up more volatile crypto as collateral and liquidate it automatically, and some hold a hedged derivatives position that earns or pays funding.

This pillar explains those designs and the evidence you can check for each. The guides cover how to read an attestation or reserve report and what it does not prove, how the two largest dollar stablecoins differ in issuer, reserves and redemption access, what the supply of stablecoins does and does not tell you about market demand, and how the main stablecoin types have failed in the past, with the date and cause of each depeg.

Regulation has changed the ground rules. The United States enacted a federal payment stablecoin law in 2025 and the European Union's MiCA rules now govern stablecoins offered there; the regulation pillar covers the legal text, while these guides focus on how the coins themselves work. None of the pages here ranks stablecoins or suggests one to hold.