Can Stablecoins Survive?

A wide-ranging exploration and look at some of the existential threats for the growing asset class.

Dec 22, 2021

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ABOUT

Join hosts Adam B. Levine and Stephanie Murphy, along with special guest Josh Scigala, CEO of Vaultoro, for a wide-ranging exploration of the growing asset class of “stablecoins.”

This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io, KuCoin and DeFiHorse.

On this episode we discuss:

The possibility of central banks or regulators banning private 1:1 stablecoins.
The challenges faced by early, decentralized, over-collateralized stablecoins.
How negative interest rates will drive 1:1 stablecoins into fractional reserve.
The potential weaponization of unlimited money printing to take control of limited resources.
The scenario where governments freeze bank accounts connected to 1:1 backed coins in an attempt to destroy the wider crypto economy.
The potential for mismanagement of funds by 1:1 companies and threat of a Lehman Brothers 2.0.
The shrinking but still dangerous dearth of transparency within the biggest stablecoin balance sheets.
Why regulators can’t seem to keep up with real solutions.
Why Josh believes decentralized stablecoins present a better set of tradeoffs.

Credits

Today’s show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Jonathan Mohan, Stephanie Murphy and Adam B. Levine, with editing by Jonas. Music for today’s show was provided by Jared Rubens and Gurtybeats.com. Our episode art was created by Adam B. Levine using pixelmind.ai

Any questions or comments? Send us an email at [email protected]

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.