Series · in English
Polish research edition →Stablecoins: Past, Present and Future
Eleven chapters on stablecoins: what "1 USDC = 1 USD" means, who earns the spread, how the contracts work, where payments are real, and what survives the next cycle.
11 chapters · ~37 716 words · 31 figures · data as of 4–10 Sep 2026
A masterclass in eleven chapters on how dollar tokens are built, who earns the spread, and where payments are real. Every number has a source and a read date. Discrepancies are shown, not averaged.
How to read. Read in order. In a hurry: chapter 1 (what the peg is), chapter 4 (the business), chapter 7 (payments). Evaluating a token: chapter 11.
- 01
What one USDC actually equals
The sentence "1 USDC = 1 USD" looks like a definition. It is three independent claims, and only one of them explains the price.
→ - 02
How ten years of failures selected this market
Today's dollar tokens are leftovers of a selection process, not the first designs anyone tried.
→ - 03
How each kind of stablecoin holds its peg
Marketing sorts these tokens as regulated, institutional or decentralized. None of those labels says what happens when a tenth of the holders want out in an hour.
→ - 04
The business is a spread on T-bills
A dollar token looks like a payments product. The issuer that prints it lives on the interest the reserve earns, and the holder of USDC or USDT is paid none of that interest unless some other firm, or a second token…
→ - 05
Under the hood the contract is only half of it
A dollar token has a public contract and a private banking day. Mint waits for a wire; transfer then runs without the issuer; burn and the dollar payout are days apart.
→ - 06
Tron is USDT's first chain
A dollar token can be deployed on a hundred networks. The ranking that decides who actually holds it, who trades it in DeFi, and who uses it to pay a person does not pick the same chain, and the chain that wins…
→ - 07
On-chain volume is not a payment
The industry quotes tens of trillions of dollars of stablecoin transfers in a year. That figure is a count of tokens moved, including exchange deposits, trading bots and a wallet sending to itself.
→ - 08
Eight regimes, none of them matching
A published rule and a rule in force are different objects, and this market currently has both.
→ - 09
The firms behind the dollar tokens
The logos on a DefiLlama list are not one kind of company. This chapter sorts them by layer: who builds a balance sheet, who rents issuance to a brand, who holds the keys, who distributes, and which of those names…
→ - 10
What works and the next five years
Which dollar tokens still have a customer when the subsidy is stripped, and which 2030 numbers are scenarios rather than forecasts.
→ - 11
How to analyze any stablecoin in 30 minutes
A new dollar token is not understood by reading the supply ticker.
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