For investors interested in gaining exposure to cryptocurrency but worried about rampant volatility, stablecoins may be worth a look.
While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have disrupted the way many investors interact and think about money, traditional investors may opt to steer clear as prices can change drastically from one moment to the next.
Stablecoins, on the other hand, are less subject to volatility. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are backed by an asset, most often a fiat currency. They maintain much of the appeal of other cryptocurrencies, however, allowing investors access to a new and evolving asset class.
Here’s what you need to know about stablecoins:
— What are stablecoins?
— Fiat-backed stablecoins.
— Crypto-backed stablecoins.
— Commodity-backed stablecoins.
— How to use stablecoins.
— How to make money with stablecoins.
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What Are Stablecoins?
A stablecoin is a digital currency that is linked to an underlying asset such as a national currency or a precious metal such as gold. The main types of stablecoins include fiat-backed, cryptocurrency-backed and commodity-backed stablecoins.
“Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that are designed to maintain a fixed value, often pegged to a fiat (government-backed) security,” says Adam Lowe, chief innovation officer of CompoSecure, designer and manufacturer of premium financial cards.
Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class evolving rapidly in an increasingly tech-driven economy. As a consequence, cryptocurrencies are subject to major volatility, which can change their value in a matter of seconds.
Since they are pegged to a more stable asset such as the U.S. dollar, stablecoins were created to manage price swings often seen in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies have proved to be sensitive to market events, but stablecoins tend to be less influenced by market conditions.
Fiat-Backed Stablecoins
Popular fiat-backed stablecoins include Tether (USDT), which is backed one-to-one on the U.S. dollar. Tether is the first stablecoin that came to market and the most used and adopted stablecoin with the largest market capitalization. USDC is another stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar. It was launched in 2018 by Coinbase and Circle. These are centralized stablecoins, which means the stablecoin is held by an entity or exchange. In the case of USDC, this stablecoin is managed by Circle and Coinbase.
One of the risks with stablecoins that have a central authority is trusting that they can maintain their supply of dollars equal to the supply of stablecoins. This can be seen as going against the concept of decentralization.
“With a centralized third party, the organization that created the stablecoin entity, you have to trust that they have the corresponding dollars they issued the stablecoins for,” says Mike Scanlan, co-founder and chief technology officer at CoinMover, a cryptocurrency ATM operator.
The concern is the third-party entity shaping the value of the stablecoin, Scanlan says.
Crypto-Backed Stablecoins
DAI is a decentralized, crypto-backed stablecoin. Maker, a smart contract platform built on the Ethereum network, backs and stabilizes the value of DAI through a dynamic system of collateralized debt positions, autonomous feedback mechanisms and appropriately incentivized external actors, according to a whitepaper from the Maker team.
This digital asset’s goal is to try to keep its value respective to the U.S. dollar and is maintained on the Ethereum blockchain network. This is done by allowing people to use their Ethereum assets to generate DAI on the Maker platform without an intermediary. This means anyone can help maintain the blockchain, which is not controlled by any one single person or entity.
Commodity-Backed Stablecoins
These stablecoins are backed by precious metals such as gold or oil. Some of the most well-known stablecoins in this category are Tether Gold and Paxos Gold. Commodity-collateralized stablecoins are more susceptible to price movements, but since commodities should increase in value over the long run, investors can buy and hold this asset for capital appreciation.
[Read: Is Bitcoin Worth Investing In?]
How to Use Stablecoins
One of the chief ways to use stablecoins is for quick and cheap payments or money transfers on a global scale. Stablecoins provide a fast way to transfer deposits or withdrawals between fiat currencies to cryptocurrency exchanges.
“One of the most powerful uses of stablecoins is payments,” says Nemil Dalal, head of crypto at Coinbase.
With stablecoins, Dalal says, users can send money anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. Given that they’re a stable currency, stablecoins provide an easy payment flow, making it simple for businesses to securely send money to their employees.
When crypto users observe major price movements, they could move their money to stablecoins and wait for the market to stabilize. “When cryptocurrencies are down, people generally seem to buy stablecoins and use them to get out of the volatility,” Dalal says.
As volatility-shy investors wait for the markets to calm, they can keep purchasing stablecoins with fiat money, and that value will not change until they want to move it into Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Another advantage of stablecoins is the ease of use across cryptocurrency exchanges. “They are highly liquid and tradable, making them easy to exchange into other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies if desired,” Lowe says.
It’s not easy to transfer cash in and out of cryptocurrencies. Even if you place a sell order, it can take days for the withdrawal to finalize. But if you convert your money to stablecoin, you maintain its value.
[SEE: 7 High-Risk Stocks That Are Worth the Volatility.]
How to Make Money With Stablecoins
To make money with stablecoins, you can:
— Earn interest on your stablecoins.
— Lend your stablecoins.
— Stake your stablecoins.
Holding your money in stablecoins on a cryptocurrency exchange is a low-risk way to make money by earning interest on stablecoin balances.
“Due to being an important reserve of capital and high liquidity, exchanges and lending groups in the community often will pay significant interest rates to hold or lend stablecoins,” Lowe says.
Earn interest on your stablecoins. This can be done by simply opening an account with a cryptocurrency exchange and accruing daily interest on your holdings. Many of these exchanges have no minimum balances and few fees.
Investing in a stablecoin backed by a precious metal such as gold, for example, is similar to investing in gold. If the value of gold increases, the value of the commodity-backed stablecoin increases as a result.
“It has some similarities to buying a gold (exchange-traded fund) on Wall Street,” Dalal says. It’s just a different way to get exposure to the commodity.
But this scenario doesn’t hold true for a fiat-backed stablecoin. Fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar or euro are meant to have a steady value and not fluctuate in price. In this case, a stablecoin pegged to a fiat currency will likely not change in value over time.
Lend your stablecoins. Another way to earn money through stablecoins is by lending them out to borrowers.
“Crypto lending is an alternative investment form where investors lend fiat money or cryptocurrencies to other borrowers in exchange for interest payments,” says Tom Pageler, CEO at Prime Trust, a blockchain-driven trust company that provides fintech innovators with financial infrastructure solutions.
Pageler says the rate of return can range from 5% to 12% annual percentage yield, and the yield tends to be paid out in the coin you lent out. “If you lend BTC, you are getting your yield in BTC,” says Pageler, referring to Bitcoin.
Stake your stablecoins. You can also earn money through a process called staking. Staking involves participating in maintaining the flow of the blockchain network on a certain asset. In return, you are compensated by earning income from the network. With staking, Pageler says you are “locking cryptocurrencies to receive rewards.”
The staking process is similar to depositing money in a savings account or money market account, Pageler says.
“These could be rewards of coins/tokens in a particular blockchain or in the stablecoin that you are staking,” he says.
Some cryptocurrencies that offer staking rewards include Ethereum 2.0, Tezos, Algorand and others on a variety of exchanges.
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What Are Stablecoins and How Can I Invest in Them? originally appeared on usnews.com
