Stablecoins bridge the worlds of cryptocurrency and everyday fiat currency because their prices are pegged to a reserve asset like the U.S. dollar or gold. This dramatically reduces volatility compared to something like Bitcoin and results in a form of digital money that is better suited to everything from day-to-day commerce to making transfers between exchanges.
The combination of traditional-asset stability with digital-asset flexibility has proven to be a wildly popular idea. Billions of dollars in value have flowed into stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) as they've become some of the most popular ways to store and trade value in the crypto ecosystem.
That’s one of the many cryptos out there. And of course you think it’s wrong. You anachronistically believe in gold backed currency.
But the truth is gold has no innate value, unless you’re into making circuit boards. Money has ALWAYS gotten its value from people willing to exchange it. Here’s one of my favorite articles ever:
https://coins.nd.edu/colcoin/colcoinintros/CtfBrit.intro.html
Short version is that at one point in England people knowingly and willing accepted counterfeit money. Not at face value, but they took it. In fact the counterfeit money got so popular there came to counterfeits of the counterfeit. Which they also took, though at lower value than the blackies. Once you take the time to truly understand that time period in history you will understand how money works. And it ain’t got nothing to do with gold backing.
Face it, probably 90% of the money you spend now isn’t even backed by DOLLARS, forget gold. We move around 1s and 0s and say they’re dollars. They aren’t. They’re 1s and 0s. In your direct deposits, in your automatic bill pay. In your debit card. It’s all aether. Not backed by anything... except belief. Just like all money before it.