Stablecoins – the cryptocurrency pegged to reality – could save the market

The last few years have seen the crypto market experience exponential growth, and at the time of writing, it was worth £152bn globally.

However, predictions that cryptocurrencies will supplant conventional forms of money have so far proved to be unfounded, as their wild volatility makes them unsuitable for day-to-day use by consumers.

But it isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom for digital currencies. The key to their future mainstream adoption may lie in stablecoins.

Stablecoins are a class of cryptocurrencies directly pegged to a “real world” asset, such as the dollar or gold. Around 66 per cent of the stablecoins currently in existence are pegged to the US currency, but with more than 57 different stablecoins undergoing development globally, this figure is sure to change as the market undergoes further fragmentation.

As implied by the name, what distinguishes stablecoins from traditional cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ethereum is their relatively high levels of price…