Stablecoins like Tether remind me of Uber. Regulation led to products with poor user experience (taxis) so there was a window of opportunity for Uber to show up with a better user experience which ignored regulations until it was tok big to ban.

Regulations on foreign exchange transactions especially in emerging markets with unstable currencies have created a similar situation for Tether and other stablecoins.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-25/crypto-s-too-big-to-fail-token-tether-faces-potential-new-threat-from-us-usdt

Crypto’s ‘Too Big to Fail’ Token Tether Faces New Threat From US

Of all the legal actions taken against cryptocurrency companies by US regulators and prosecutors over the past year, arguably none threatens to shake up the digital-asset industry as much as a potential crackdown on Tether Holdings Ltd.

Bloomberg

@carnage4life I think part of the success of Uber is that they guessed, correctly, that when faced with actually enforcing laws that directly worked against the public interest, municipal governments would cave rather than do something so unpopular.

I definitely think capital controls are in this same boat. People don't like being told that they're not allowed to exchange their currency actually.

@carnage4life Considering #Tether is a centralized setup with literal #SmartContract that give the company behind it the option to ban/freeze and empty #wallets to "comply with #sanctions" it merely undercuts shitty #MoneyRemittance services like #WesternUnion that charge absurdly high fees.

But don't take my word on it cuz this is #NotFinancialAdvice...

@carnage4life Taxis are not always a poor user experience. They were in New York, apparently, and this is where Uber started.