Stablecoins are essentially currency. In ancient China, the rights to produce salt and mint currency were exclusively held by the monarch. If someone dared to issue currency without an army to back them up, they were basically courting death. Back in the day, Brother Pony’s Q Coins became the prototype of virtual currency, but they were quickly shut down. In the modern world, the Federal Reserve firmly controls the U.S. dollar, the global currency hegemon. Oil trades must be settled in dollars, and international financial systems like SWIFT, IMF, and the World Bank are heavily reliant on the dollar. Central banks around the world hold dollars as reserves, and some smaller countries have even abandoned their own currencies to adopt the dollar because their own currencies are too unstable. Now, in the crypto era, anyone can issue stablecoins and create their own value anchor. This signifies the liberalization of finance and the decentralization of the world’s ledger.