Before digging into the discussion, let’s shed some light on what stable cryptocurrency is. It’s the one that doesn’t change its value. Stablecoins were created to solve or at least to mitigate the price volatility while keeping all the other valuable characteristics of digital currency. But in fact, they are more like digitized fiat money.
Today one of the most popular and, well, stable cryptocurrencies is considered to be Tether (USDT). It is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization and the fifth-largest among all cryptocurrencies. USDT was created to be pegged on the American dollar, and its value almost never changes. Today’s Tether price is $0.997645, with a market cap of $4.28B.
Tether first appeared in 2014 after re-branding from Realcoin, which served as a foundation for the creation of USDT that exists today. In 2019 it was “re-branded” once more, and now it supposedly backed not only by USD but also by other assets. Also, according to the official website, it is fully secured by the monetary reserve of the Tether platform. Tether, the same as many other digital coins, supports cross-currency transactions. But unlike with most others, you can easily use Tether to transact with USD, EUR, and JPY. It is one of the few coins (like Nubits and Timekoin) that directly tether “real” currencies to crypto.
The other two popular stablecoins are TrueUSD (TUSD) and MakerDAO (DAI). TUSD is also backed by USD. The best part about TrueUSD is its transparency, with attestations that can be accessed by anyone. If you want to cash out, you can submit a request to the TrustToken team, and they will wire real dollars to your bank account. If you want some more TUSD coins, send them your dollars, and you will get your coins delivered to your crypto wallet. Or you can buy them on the open market. TrueUSD is ranked 49th among all global cryptocurrencies, with the market capitalization of $140.5M.
DAI is different: it is backed by Ethereum and hence falls under the category of crypto-collateralized cryptocurrency. Basically, DAI is a loan against Ethereum. It is the most decentralized stablecoin of them all because users don’t need to trust anyone. They can just receive a 1-to-1 valuation to USD through an algorithm designed by MakerDAO. Its market capitalization is currently around $42M.
And the prize for the “Most stable cryptocurrency 2020” goes to… Well, obviously, you can choose what suits you best, but Tether remains the most popular one for a reason.