“Trump’s Nashville speech discussed bitcoin interchangeably with “crypto,” but bitcoin is fundamentally different from other cryptocurrencies. It runs on a decentralized, peer-to-peer software network and issuance schedule that, by design, can’t be tampered with by centralized authorities. It provides a way to send value over the internet without trusting third-party intermediaries. Like the gold standard, it’s a neutral monetary system; unlike gold, it has no physical properties, making it harder to seize or censor. If bitcoin fully succeeds, governments will no longer be able to steal from their citizens by printing money, and they’ll no longer be able to cut people off from payment networks and banking services.
“Crypto,” on the other hand, typically describes a set of centrally issued tokens, usually administered by foundations, neobanks, and tech companies. Most “crypto” projects are outright scams or pyramid schemes; most have failed to find (or never looked for) real-world adoption.
The major exception is “stablecoins,” which have emerged as the crypto industry’s killer application. They work like casino chips: a stablecoin company issues $100 worth of digital dollar tokens and simultaneously backs them with $100 of “high-quality” assets, typically U.S. Treasuries. Stablecoins aren’t routed through the conventional banking system, so they move easily across borders and are readily accessible in parts of the world where the dollar is in high demand.
Stablecoins’ key innovation isn’t technical; it’s regulatory arbitrage. They mean dollars for anyone, with no rules. Like bitcoin, they’re a quasi-permissionless, internet-native form of money; unlike bitcoin, they rely on the U.S. dollar for their value and are almost entirely administered by companies.
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As early as 2018, millions of people in Iran, Turkey, Nigeria, and Argentina began using Tether as an “offshore” dollar that local authorities couldn’t easily confiscate. With stablecoins, a refugee in a war zone can access dollars just as easily as a London bank. A recent study from ARK Invest estimated that there are 200 million stablecoin holders, compared to a billion holders of paper dollars. As countries like Russia and Iran attempt to coerce their citizens into using collapsing local currencies, the people are increasingly turning to stablecoins, which are hard to ban.
There is significant bitcoin adoption in authoritarian countries and collapsing economies as well, but many prefer stablecoins to mitigate price volatility. Stablecoins track the dollar, while bitcoin floats. Like the dollar, stablecoins gradually lose value over time, but they don’t experience wild price swings.
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unlike bitcoin, stablecoins require users to trust the companies that issue them. The tokens can be frozen, inflated, or remotely confiscated—and if the company issuing them commits fraud, they can become worthless. They’re a useful tool, but they aren’t in the same category as bitcoin, which is essentially freedom money.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/12/donald-trump-is-not-the-bitcoin-president