You say it's not another stablecoin but it is in fact a stablecoin, right? Else, what is it stable relative to if not a fiat currency like USD?

Great question — and you’re right to challenge the wording.

cBTC is not a stablecoin in the traditional sense because it is not pegged to USD (or to any fiat currency). It doesn’t target a $1 price, it doesn’t use arbitrage bots, and there’s no issuer promising convertibility at a fixed rate.

So what is it “stable” relative to?

cBTC aims for relative stability inside the Bitcoin monetary system, not parity with fiat.

More precisely:

1. cBTC is “stable” relative to Bitcoin’s upside volatility, not USD.

It’s minted at 30% LTV against BTC, so instead of tracking the dollar, it tracks a fraction of BTC’s value. If BTC goes up or down 10%, cBTC moves far less because it represents only 0.3 BTC of exposure.

It's basically a dampened-volatility BTC unit, not a fiat-pegged instrument.

2. It’s not stable against USD inflation — it’s stable away from fiat.

Traditional stablecoins outsource monetary stability to central banks (USD). cBTC tries the opposite: It creates a Bitcoin-native unit of account that does not depend on fiat or external collateral.

You could say it’s “stable against fiat debasement” only because the collateral is Bitcoin — but that’s not the core design goal.

3. The goal is not price stability — it’s functional stability.

The intention is to give Bitcoin users:

• a less volatile unit for payments,
• without touching USD,
• without trusting issuers,
• without algorithmic peg mechanisms.

In short:

USD-stablecoins peg to the dollar. cBTC aims for a Bitcoin-native low-volatility unit.

So yes — you can call it a stablecoin if your definition is “asset designed to be less volatile,” but it’s not a USD-stablecoin, and it doesn’t behave like one. It’s simply a different species.