Island of Stability: Stable Coins Keep Attracting Big-League Investors

While the IT titan isn't new to the world of crypto, stable coins have been attracting more mainstream players lately, and big league investments - from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Peter Thiel - have started pouring in.

Essentially, stable coins aim to tackle volatility - one of the cryptocurrencies' chief dilemmas - without compromising their core values ensured by blockchain: namely, decentralization and security - although they have not always succeeded in doing so, as it will be explained below.

As per its name, stable coins are designed to keep their price fixed, making them immune to manipulation trading.

On a smaller scale, stable coins allow casual investors to trade seamlessly, swiftly transferring money between crypto exchanges and bypassing conventional, time-consuming bank wire transfers - many cryptocurrency exchanges do not support fiat at all, making such stable coins an essential unit of account.

While any cryptocurrency can potentially fulfill that role, stable coins are more useful for retail purposes due to their low - nearly nonexistent - volatility.

Such stable coins are pegged to natural resources: For instance, the stable coin Digix is tethered with the price of 1 gram of 99.99 percent, LBMA-approved gold.

In the end, crypto-back stable coins still rely on external factors, such as the price of certain cryptocurrencies.

The concept of a stable coin itself lives on and continues to attract investors, as new coins emerge.

On April 18, the U.S.-based stable coin startup called Basis, reported raising $133 million in funding in private placement from big venture capital investors - including Bain Capital Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as a former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh.

What else distinguishes USDC from a plethora of other stable coins is that it has the privilege of enjoying a jump start: Circle, which has seven million users, is looking to integrate USDC in its Circle Pay payment app as well as in Circle Trade, a crypto OTC desk and liquidity provider.