pTokens may not be the stablecoins you want, but they are the stablecoins you need. For the majority of people, pTokens may seem too technical or complicated — even though all you have to do is add a lowercase p to the digital currencies they support. The value for pTokens is that they provide cross-chain interoperability, which means they are portable to any blockchain technology and a 2-way peg. Once again, this might not mean much to the average stablecoin investor but most stablecoins (including the ones we’ve listed above) are only available on one blockchain, mostly Ethereum. This severely limits their usability as the industry scales, which in turn limits their usability and demand. Is this a huge problem at the moment? No, Ethereum is able to solve most of the real life problems that demand stablecoins through their smart contracts. But new public chains are emerging every year, and companies like NEO and Omni are creating a different set of blockchains that not only provide different features to Ethereum but also different transaction speeds and costs. To make this simpler, imagine tokens as individual cars and blockchains as the highways. To begin with, you need a reason to get into the car and drive somewhere — this is the usability problem we’ve highlighted constantly. Once you have a reason, you demand a car — or in our case, a token. But the tokens need roads and highways to travel on. Most cars these days are only allowed on one type of road — Ethereum, which serves as the main highway. But maybe you want to instead take a road less travelled, a more scenic route. Unfortunately, you would need a car that is able to do that which most are not able to today — except for something like pTokens. This flexibility, known as cross-chain interoperability, is what puts pTokens as one of the leaders in the stablecoin industry in terms of usability. While most people are obsessing over the security of collaterals backed by USD in stablecoins like Tether or USDT, there remains a massive opportunity for more functional stablecoins like pTokens to serve a completely different purpose. So moving forward, keep an eye out for not just pTokens, but any stablecoin, which offers this type of cross-chain interoperability.
Like many of the other stablecoins listed above, Stably is also a little bit different than your traditional stablecoin. To begin with, Stably offers an enterprise service in which they will help organizations create their own stablecoin — as well as offer to manage it and make sure it fits all the regulatory compliances. This is similar to how software went from everyone making their own software to what we see now in the SaaS space. In many ways, this is truly innovative as Stably essentially provides the same service (albeit a different kind of SaaS). While they have their own stablecoin in USDS, the bigger focus is on transforming the stablecoin industry into a service that you can scale across a range of clients. As we stated above, much of the technology in this sector is changing daily, making it difficult for many legacy service providers to just jump into the stablecoin space despite knowing that digital currencies are the future. With Stably’s solution though, any financial service provider is able to transition smoothly into the stablecoin space.
Stablecoins are still emerging and in self-discovery mode. Not only is the public not 100% clear of their usability or security all the time, but neither are the projects themselves which back and create stablecoins. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as innovation requires trying new things and testing things out. Are there some projects, including ones we’ve listed, going to fail? Probably. But in the grander scheme of things stablecoins are without doubt trending in an upwards direction. This is only going to be further compounded by the emergence of DeFi and the complicated market dynamics it brings to the table such as crediting, insuring or microlending. Without a strong backbone to keep its tokens stable, DeFi won’t be able to attract enough eyeballs and wallets to propel the sector to new heights. Maybe one day we’ll look back and realize that stablecoins were actually just along for the ride, but that is another story for another day.
If we missed any stablecoins you’d like to have personally reviewed, please let us know in the comments section below — we’d love to hear from you!