According to Blockworks, Bitcoin and Ethereum have not met the original expectations many had for crypto, but stablecoins are poised to do so, says Jeff Lewis, a product manager at Pantera Capital. In a recent letter, Lewis highlighted that Bitcoin's lack of speed and scalability hinders its potential as a viable replacement for money. Ethereum, while paving the way for NFTs, Web3 applications, and DeFi powered by ether [ETH], is almost as volatile as Bitcoin, making it unsuitable as a stable currency.

Stablecoins, however, are set to enable peer-to-peer transfers of value and help people protect against unstable currencies without relying on service providers. Lewis compares payments giant PayPal to a stablecoin, as it allows users to cheaply transfer digital ledger entries worth one dollar to merchants and peers worldwide. He also mentions the possibility of a trustless, transparent, and yield-bearing 'PayPal 2.0,' although PayPal has not announced any such plans.

The growth of stablecoins with yields generated by underlying money-market investments and the tokenization of the money-market itself are already being witnessed. For example, Franklin Templeton launched a money market fund that uses a public blockchain to record transactions, with one share of the fund represented by one BENJI token, acting like a stablecoin with yield. Additionally, JPMorgan has built blockchain-based applications, and Citi's new Citi Token Services aims to let clients access tokenized deposits, cross-border payments, and automated trade finance solutions 24 hours a day.