0. Intro
Stablecoins and stablechannels are a bad idea for four reasons:
- Compared to bitcoin, they all require extra trusted third parties (i.e. security holes)
- As a store of value, they're worse than btc due to the constant depreciation of the fiat they emulate
- As a medium of exchange, they are no better than btc because they face the same limitations
- As a unit of account, they are no better than btc because this is a solved problem
1. Extra trusted third parties
The most popular stablecoins are effectively banks that issue bearer bonds. Depositors send real money or cryptocurrency to Tether or Circle or whoever, and they swap it for government bonds or cash, and then print an equivalent amount of USDT or USDC, which they give to the depositors in return. The recipients begin circulating these in the economy, and sometimes redeem them at the issuer for their face value in USD or other fiat currencies. The issuer is the trusted third party. They can freeze your assets, refuse to redeem them, go bankrupt and disappear, or require KYC on every transfer.
Stablechannels are partially algorithmic. You deposit bitcoin in a lightning node, find a counterparty who is willing to take on a "contract for difference" with you, and you begin paying them money if bitcoin's price rises, or they pay you if bitcoin's price falls. The point is to ensure that whatever amount you deposited is still worth that amount whenever you send it, receive more of it, or close out your position. And if either counterparty fails to pay when required, the channel force closes, which is typically more expensive than if you just kept up your end of the bargain. The trusted third party here is the source of price info. A set of price oracles report the price of bitcoin, which determines whether your device sends money or your counterparty does that. A malicious counterparty can collude with these price oracles to always report that your device should send them money, and thus drain your wallet while you sleep.
Bitcoin is better money than stablecoins and stablechannels because it has fewer trusted third parties. Bitcoin doesn't need banks and it doesn't need oracles. There are fewer people at the protocol level who can pull the rug out from under you and that makes bitcoin safer, better money.
2. Store of value
Stablecoins and stablechannels are pegged to fiat currencies. Fiat currencies typically have a built-in, intentional depreciation target of about 2% per year, and whenever the issuer feels like money is tight, they can (and often do) simply raise that target, announce that they did so due to economic necessity, and then print more for themselves. This steals value from anyone who holds that fiat currency, and also from anyone who holds money in a stablecoin or a stablechannel pegged to that currency.
Some might argue that stablecoins are a better store of value than bitcoin anyway because they are less volatile. But a cursory examination of any comparison chart reveals that bitcoin's volatility trends upward and that fiat currencies, while somewhat less volatile, are by no means immune from volatility. Their volatility is just more patchy, and trends downward instead of upward. So bitcoin beats stablecoins and stablechannels on overall store of value, and it's not as disparate a match on volatility as some people make it out to be. Patience heals the volatility wound.
3. Medium of exchange
Bitcoin and stablecoins and stablechannels are all built on the same technologies. When users go to use them at stores, they face the same limitations: the payment might get stuck in a pending state; the payment might fail altogether, if it uses lightning; the transaction fees might be expensive; and the shop might not have a compatible wallet. Stablecoins and stablechannels don't offer anything that fundamentally fixes these issues.
Some might say stablechannels do, since they use lightning, but all of the above things still apply: lightning payments can get stuck too, or fail, or be expensive, or be unrecognizable to the recipient's device. Some might say stablecoins on tron, solana, or ethereum L2s fundamentally fix this, but they have the same problems: tron and solana and ethereum L2 payments sometimes get stuck, fail, have high fees, and aren't supported by all wallets.
The same problems afflict all options, bitcoin and stablecoins and stablechannels. It is unwise to divide efforts by trying to increase adoption of stablecoins or stablechannels while fixing the same problems on disparate platforms. It is wise to push for adoption of bitcoin directly as the best money while aligning all available efforts to fix problems on bitcoin.
4. Unit of account
The unit of account problem was solved by technology. Point of sale devices can easily obtain the price of any currency or cryptocurrency and show an invoice or address to the users for the equivalent price of whatever they are buying. Users typically have devices that also tell them what amount is being asked of them in whatever currency they like best, and if they opt for "advanced" wallets that don't convert to fiat terms, then they are probably sophisticated enough to just look at the amount and intuit whether it looks about right.
Some might say "but it's easier to denominate in stablecoins than BTC because bitcoin's price changes more frequently/quickly than stablecoins do." But "denominating in stablecoins" is actually just a proxy for denominating in fiat, because stablecoins are just a proxy for fiat. And more importantly, this is only true for some currencies some of the time. Argentinian pesos and Venezuelan bolivars are two of the most recent monetary units to collapse, leading to many people in those countries refusing to use them as a unit of account. Nothing stops the same thing from happening to the dollar, or the euro, or even to bitcoin.
But technology has made this part pointless. Whichever currency or cryptocurrency you use, your point of sale device can figure out the appropriate exchange rate when the customer approaches you to buy something. Thanks to digital devices, the unit of account problem is no longer a problem. So stablecoins and stablechannels don't beat bitcoin on this front either.
5. Conclusion
Stablecoins and stablechannels are worse money than bitcoin in four important categories. Those who push for their adoption stand in the way of hyperbitcoinization. Some folks think they are pushing for bitcoin adoption, but when it comes to merchants, they recommend they use a stablecoin or a stablechannel wallet like Strike or Boardwalk Cash. I recommend they use bitcoin. It is better money anyway, and the point of all this is to help the world use a better money, not just make it so your wallet works at a few more places.