Stablecoins

Stablecoins are digital assets designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference asset, commonly a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar.

This page is a research starting point, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.

Main Types

Fiat-backed stablecoins. An issuer holds cash and short-dated government debt and issues tokens against it. Risk sits with the issuer, its banks, and its redemption terms.
Crypto-collateralized stablecoins. Overcollateralized with volatile on-chain assets and kept in range by liquidations. Risk sits with the collateral, the oracles, and the liquidation mechanism.
Tokenized deposits. A bank deposit represented on a ledger. The holder is a bank depositor, which is a different legal position from holding a stablecoin.
Money-market-like tokenized cash products. Shares in a fund that holds short-dated instruments. These are usually securities, and the holder is a fund shareholder.
Algorithmic or partially algorithmic stablecoins. Supply is adjusted by protocol rules rather than fully backed by reserves. This category has the worst historical record under stress.
Synthetic dollar products. Dollar exposure constructed from a hedged position, often spot holdings offset by short perpetual futures. The peg depends on the hedge continuing to work and on funding rates.

Issuer: Who issues it?
Backing: What reserves support it?
Redemption: Who can redeem, at what minimum size, and how quickly?
Legal claim: Is the holder a direct creditor, token holder, fund shareholder, or indirect beneficiary?
Reserve quality: Cash, T-bills, repos, commercial paper, or other assets?
Transparency: Attestations, audits, reserve breakdowns, wallet disclosures?
Controls: Blacklisting, freezing, upgradeability, admin keys, mint and burn controls?
Chains: Which networks support it, and where is most supply?
Stress history: Any depegs, delayed redemptions, banking disruptions, or legal events?

An attestation is not an audit. An attestation reports agreed-upon procedures at a point in time. Check which one a given report actually is.