The Future of Money: Stablecoins and the Unbanked

At the London Blockchain Conference 2024, one panel focused on the occasionally thorny issue of stablecoins, particularly those issued by private firms

At the London Blockchain Conference 2024, a panel discussion centered on the role of stablecoins, particularly those issued by private firms, in on-chain digital payment solutions. The panel was moderated by Sebastian Ploetzeneder, Senior Strategy Manager and Public Affairs Director U.K. for enterprise blockchain technology firm nChain. Ploetzeneder’s guests included Reginald Tumusiime, President of the Blockchain Association of Uganda; Bernhard Müller, General Manager/Chairman at Zurich-based digital payments operator Centi Ltd; and Harbind Likhari, VP of Trading And Exchange Services with the self-custodial RockWallet.

Ploetzeneder began by asking Müller about CCHF, a Swiss franc-based token that became the first native stablecoin on the BSV blockchain in March 2023. Müller noted that CCHF is “capable of radical micropayments,” unlike some well-known stablecoins. Earlier this year, Centi processed one million one-cent CCHF transactions in a single 24-hour period as a demonstration at the Finovate Europe 2024 conference.

CCHF is also a stablecoin outlier due to Centi’s willingness to sell the token directly to consumers, rather than requiring users to purchase the token via a digital asset exchange. Centi has partnered with thousands of Swiss merchants to enable the use of CCHF for everyday purchases.

With CCHF fully backed by a Swiss bank guarantee, Müller said Centi was looking to “build consumer trust” in stablecoins, something currently lacking given the refusal by Tether (USDT) to submit to a third-party audit and Circle (USDC) almost losing $3.3 billion following Silicon Valley Bank’s 2023 collapse.

Centi has also highlighted its ability to transform remittance services to African countries, prompting Ploetzeneder to ask Tumusiime what African firms are looking for in terms of payments.

Tumusiime, who has a track record with small and medium enterprises (SME) as well as in private equity, noted Africa’s unique history with “mobile money” via major telecom operators such as Safaricom, Airtel, and others. Tumusiime said Safaricom’s MPESA and Airtel Money are “basically privately issued money.”

However, Tumusiime emphasized that it’s crucial to realize that Africa’s telcos weren’t usurping the role of central bankers. “All they did was have money that is circulating through their networks backed by actual cash in trust accounts in the largest banks in their respective markets. So you’re providing infrastructure to enable payments across the country, but not necessarily creating a new currency.”

Regardless, the central banks of several East African countries are now “having discussions about a monetary union, how do we merge our currencies. There’s nothing better than CBDC’s [central bank digital currencies] to solve this problem.” Tumusiime pointed to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) survey that found 75% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa were “thinking of some form of CBDC.”

According to Tumusiime, the telcos had identified “a gap in financial inclusion” that was leaving large segments of African populations unbanked. In addition, Tumusiime said lately he’d noticed “a bit of complacence within these telcos,” leading to increased remittance fees and higher thresholds for the minimum amount of money you can send, among other inconveniences.

Tumusiime’s CapitalSavvy is now “leveraging on the success of mobile money to provide a better solution” using blockchain. Tumusiime noted that regulation is usually a bottleneck in most jurisdictions, but African countries’ years of experience with mobile money mean that “there’s no better positioned region to have a fast use case for privately issued money.”

RockWallet’s Likhari said banking was one of the biggest challenges in the digital asset space. Most top-tier banks remain skittish about blockchain-related activities, forcing companies to deal with second-tier banks “where the services generally aren’t as fluid.”

This constrained access to fiat channels also impacts RockWallet’s customers. “Whether they want to go long or short a particular asset, they keep the proceeds in stablecoins at the end of trading. In order to keep investing again and again, they use stablecoins as value transfer between themselves and other entities.” In other words, they’re willing to pay for the convenience or (more appropriately) the lack of inconvenience involved in converting digital assets to fiat and vice versa.

Likhari observed that Ethereum users were once happy to pay high ‘gas’ fees to ensure their transactions were processed swiftly, reasoning that they “would likely pay the same amount wiring funds from one bank to another.” But as the market has evolved, “we’re seeing people wanting to cut down on all fees.”

Likhari cited the “new generation of coins” that offer extremely low transaction fees—like MNEE, the BSV-based stablecoin that