The European Central Bank says bitcoin is on an “artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance”, in a scathing intervention arguing against giving regulatory legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.
The value of the digital currency has plummeted from a peak of almost $70,000 to a low of $16,000 since the, before stabilising at about $20,000. But the ECB authors say even this stabilisation is likely to be false, an artefact of market manipulation rather than genuine demand. providers etc. during the first waves are well documented, but less so the stabilising factors after the supposed bursting of the bubble in spring.”A stablecoin, like the name suggests, is a type of cryptocurrency that is supposed to have a stable value, such as US$1 per token. How they achieve that varies: the largest, such as tether and USD Coin, are effectively banks.
Stablecoins are an important part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. They provide a safer place for investors to store capital without going through the hassle of cashing out entirely, and allow assets to be denominated in conventional currency, rather than other extremely volatile tokens.