> You "need" a stable coin because you're trying to have your cake and eat it too: US dollar-like liquidity and value preservation without US dollar financial regulation.

That is not at all why people need/want USDC. People want stable coins because banks are all too happy refusing/blocking/reversing transactions to/from cryptocurrencies exchanges.

They hypocrisy of both banks and the states on this one is amazing: "it's all a ponzi" / "it's all criminal money" / "only fraustres use cryptocurrencies"

But then...

"Please pay your due taxes made on crypto".

FWIW France, at least, took a less dumb approach than many on the subject: conversions to/from crypto and stablecoins aren't a taxable event. It's only if you manage to cash out (and that's a gigantic "if") to actual EUR that taxes to the state are due. It solves at least the problem where people legally need to pay taxes but concretely cannot get money out of the crypto exchanges.

Sending from, say, Coinbase to a bank for tiny amount is relatively easy. But I'm atm helping someone "cash out" a 7 digits sum in France and it's hard. Extremely hard. It's near impossible actually to get one bank to approve the withdrawal from Coinbase. Saying: "I entered Bitcoin in 2016 and ETH when it was at 50 cents" ain't sufficient. They don't seem to understand that the KYC/AML is done to catch drug and arms dealers, organs traffickers, and pedophiles selling CSAM.

That's why there's KYC/AML right? To catch these guys.

But a 35 years old mom who made bank on crypto? That's no pedophile. No arm dealer. No drug dealer. And yet it's not clear if she'll ever be able to cash out.

That's why people are using USDC. Credit cards withdrawing from your USDC? Bring it on. Coinbase giving x% annual return on your return, please, keep it coming (btw even in France taxes are due on these annual yield). There's a shop here selling high-end second hand watches (you know, the kind of watches worth more used than new) that accepts crypto: maybe a way to get something out of your crypto.

Now I don't know if the short term US treasuries, whose numbers are all published, backing the USDC all actually exist and are really held at BNY Melon. Maybe it's all a scam. Maybe Coinbase shall rug pull too. Maybe BNY Melon shall rug pull.

For all I know, heck, maybe Uncle Sam himself is going to rug pull on the treasuries backing the USDC (I shouldn't give these people ideas but they maybe already fancied the idea anyway: "crypto are only scams, we're defaulting on the US treasuries backing stable coins"... and many idiots would applaude).

But USDC still looks, to me, more legit than USDT / Binance USD / etc.

That's why most people are using USDC: it's the least smelly of them all and the banks do no let people easily sell their crypto for real USD / EUR.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, the state wants its taxes on crypto gains.

It's the state and the state lovers who want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to prevent people from cashing out their crypto "because pedophiles and criminals" but still want their taxes made on crypto "gains".

That's why people are using stable coins.

If people were actually free to use their money, free to do wire transfer to/from Coinbase at will, there wouldn't be that much need for stable coins.

But people aren't free to use their money as they want.