Dr. J's View | Stablecoins Will Succeed — Just Like the EasyCard Did
The reason behind cryptocurrency's success is not blockchain technology, but human nature and speculative psychology. Illustration. (Archive photo, courtesy of Pexels)
My critics in the crypto world have been busy lately. After Mega Financial Holding Co. (兆豐金控) Chairman Ray Dawn (董瑞斌)compared stablecoins to Taiwan's EasyCard transit pass, and after I publicly agreed with him, the pushback came fast. One piece called me a relic. Another accused me of "cognitive laziness." A third announced, with considerable drama, that history would relegate my views to a footnote.
Fine. Let me say something that will surprise them: stablecoins will succeed. Crypto will succeed. Bitcoin will bounce back from its recent slump and go higher. I have been saying this for years.
The question is why. And on that question, my critics and I could not be further apart.
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The Jargon Is the Product
Here is how the crypto playbook works. Take a concept that sounds impressive — "programmability," "composability," "Turing completeness," "decentralized value networks" — stack the terms until the audience's eyes glaze over, then make your pitch before anyone thinks to ask what any of it means.
I spent over a decade as a software engineer. When someone tells me that stablecoins are revolutionary because they enable "programmable financial infrastructure" that is "composable" and "Turing complete," my response is simple: so does a single server. A competent developer can build automated payment logic, cross-border settlement, supply-chain triggers, and real-time contract execution on a standard server. None of that requires a blockchain. None of it requires a stablecoin.
The reason the crypto industry keeps invoking these terms is not to illuminate. It is to obscure. Jargon creates an asymmetry of apparent expertise. "I understand blockchain and you don't, so trust me" is not an argument. It is a sales technique.
What Stablecoins Actually Are
Let me be precise about what a regulated stablecoin is, mechanically. You give the issuer one dollar. The issuer gives you one stablecoin. You give the issuer one New Taiwan dollar. The issuer loads one NT dollar onto a stored-value card. These two transactions are structurally identical. The Mega chairman was not being dismissive. He was being accurate.
My critics insist this comparison misses the point. Stablecoins, they say, run on public blockchains — decentralized, tamper-proof, available at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, no bank required. EasyCard balances sit on a centralized server that a high-school student once hacked.
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Let me take these claims one at a time.
On decentralization: only proof-of-work public chains are genuinely decentralized. Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake precisely because mining was too slow and too expensive — but proof-of-stake concentrates validation power among the largest token holders, which is the opposite of decentralization. Solana is faster but trades off security to get there. The "blockchain trilemma" — you cannot simultaneously have decentralization, speed, and security — is not a fringe view. It is the consensus of everyone who actually understands how these systems work.
On the 3 a.m. cross-border transfer: a bank cannot process that transfer at 3 a.m. not because its servers are off, but because central bank reporting requirements do not operate at 3 a.m. The moment regulators require stablecoin issuers to file the same reports, that instant settlement disappears. What crypto calls "always-on cross-border remittance" is more accurately described as "cross-border remittance that currently bypasses regulatory reporting." That is not a technological achievement. It is regulatory arbitrage.
On the hacked EasyCard: yes, a teenager once breached the system. He was caught immediately. Losses were minimal. Meanwhile, billions of dollars in crypto assets are stolen every year from wallets and exchanges whose security is distributed across thousands of nodes — none of which have any obligation to maintain enterprise-grade defenses. Decentralization does not make a system more secure. In many respects it makes it less so.
The One Real Difference — and What It Reveals
A stablecoin can be exchanged on a blockchain for other crypto assets. This means that someone holding worthless speculative tokens — coins bought at a peak, now worth a fraction of their purchase price — can dump them on a new buyer and receive a stablecoin in return. Real money. Instantly. The stablecoin is the exit ramp from the casino.
That is why the crypto industry promotes stablecoins so aggressively. Not because they represent a breakthrough in financial infrastructure. Because they are the mechanism by which upstream holders convert inflated, illiquid crypto positions into spendable cash. The enthusiasm for stablecoins is, at its core, enthusiasm for a better way to take profits.
This also explains why Circle's NYSE listing sent its share price from US$31 to US$134 in a week. It was not a vote of confidence in stored-value card technology. It was the market pricing in access to an enormous, captive outflow mechanism for the entire crypto ecosystem.
As for Circle's future: because public blockchain transaction speeds are too slow for real-world payments, Circle will almost certainly build its own proprietary chain — a private ledger running on a handful of servers, processing tens of thousands of transactions per second. When that happens, Circle will be the world's largest cross-border stored-value card company. The EasyCard comparison will be even more apt than it is today.
The Developing-World Argument
y critics often invoke the global poor as crypto's ultimate justification. Argentina. Turkey. Nigeria. El Salvador. Hundreds of millions of people living under hyperinflation, capital controls, collapsing currencies. For them, stablecoins are not a luxury. They are a lifeline.
I understand the appeal of this argument. I also think it is wrong — and in a specific way that matters.
USD-pegged stablecoins are purchased with US dollars. The issuer uses those dollars to buy US Treasury bonds. The entire system depends on American monetary policy and American regulatory goodwill. When a citizen of a developing country converts their savings into USDC to escape their government's inflation, they are not escaping dollar dominance. They are deepening it. The US government, which has every incentive to expand demand for its debt, is not a neutral party in this story.
As for bitcoin specifically: the same developing-country citizens who bought bitcoin to "protect against inflation" when it was trading at US$90,000 are now sitting on assets worth US$60,000. An expert was recommending in December 2025 that the Taiwan government buy 83,000 bitcoin as a strategic reserve. Two months later, that position would have lost nearly NT$80 billion. At least the governments being harvested by their own central banks have legal recourse. Bitcoin holders have none.
The choice is not between crypto and corrupt sovereign currency. It is between being harvested by your government and being harvested by upstream holders. Neither option is liberation.
Why Crypto Will Win Anyway
Crypto will succeed for exactly the reasons I have outlined — not despite the Ponzi mechanics, but because of them. The moment you buy crypto, you become an upstream holder. You have an immediate personal financial interest in recruiting new buyers, talking up the asset, and defending it against critics. The network of believers grows not because the technology is sound but because human psychology is consistent.
The old Ponzi failed because one person conned a crowd. The crowd had no incentive to help. The new model succeeds because the crowd cons everyone — and every new participant joins the recruiting effort the moment they make their first purchase.
Add to this the political economy: the crypto industry has effectively purchased legislative protection through campaign contributions in the United States. The GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act — these did not pass because Congress independently evaluated blockchain technology and found it meritorious. They passed because the industry had money and delivered votes.
Trump's World Liberty Finance tokens. A sitting FHFA director personally holding bitcoin and Solana while pushing Freddie Mac to incorporate crypto into mortgage collateral assessments. The referee, the line judge, and the tournament organizer are all on the same team. What exactly are you going to do about it?
Dr. J's Forecast: Success Built on Human Nature, Not Technology
Crypto will succeed. Stablecoins will succeed. The EasyCard will succeed too, if EasyCard Co. rewrites its software in a blockchain-compatible format and goes global — which it could do, because the underlying technology is identical.
What will not succeed is the mythology. Blockchain is not inherently decentralized. It is not inherently tamper-proof. It is not a trust machine. The public chains that actually deliver these properties are slow, expensive, and unsuitable for everyday payments. The fast, cheap chains that can handle real transaction volumes are, under the hood, private ledgers with extra steps.
An old hand in the crypto world once told me: people who think blockchain is innovative don't understand technology; people who think bitcoin will fail don't understand human nature. I have quoted that observation before and I will quote it again, because it remains the most honest summary of this industry I have ever encountered.
I understand the technology. And I understand the human nature. Crypto will succeed. Just be clear about which one is doing the work.
You've read it. Now let's talk. Follow us on X. Editor: Penny Wang
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