Taking Crypto Beyond Volatility: Stablecoins

The history, evolution, and use of money revolves around enabling financial tools to grow livelihoods, businesses, and the overall economy as a result. Cryptocurrencies have great potential to enable a range of these tools -- from inexpensive remittances, to digital payments for the unbanked and social microcredit to algorithmic micropayments. However, none of these applications are as compelling with a volatile cryptocurrency.

That's where stablecoins come in. Sep Kamvar, founder of Celo (and co-author of the original whitepaper that described the Celo protocol) -- and former professor at MIT Media Lab as well as personalization lead at Google and consulting professor at Stanford -- shares what stablecoins are (cryptocurrencies who prices are stabilized via various mechanisms); what the different types of stablecoins are; and what the important considerations are for thinking about adopting them.

This talk was originally delivered at the inaugural a16z Crypto Regulatory Summit 2019, which brings together leading crypto experts and builders, other technologists, academics, industry executives, and government officials -- along with forward-thinking regulators -- to foster collaboration and the exchange of ideas around this important emerging industry.