Stablecoins: the possibility of a cryptocurrency becoming the future means of payment

Sammanfattning: The emergence of stablecoins and their current implementations share many similarities to the American free banking era. This was an era with economically inefficient money and payment systems, where banks issued private money that were fully redeemable in theory but not always in practice. As of today, parts of the monetary and payment systems can also be considered inefficient, and a digital currency such as a stablecoin could provide significant improvements in areas such as cross-border payments, financial inclusion, as well as contribute to a more robust monetary system.  This thesis aims to help contribute insights into how the future payment systems may look like, with a specific focus on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The emergence of the two technologies are closely interlinked, and are currently in an early state of coexistence. This qualitative study investigates the sentiment regarding the future development of stablecoins and their possible continued coexistence with CBDCs. Semi-structured interviews were held with participants from three categories of the Swedish corporate landscape; cryptocurrency innovators and investors, state representatives, and corporate representatives. The main conclusions were was that in the short term, regulations will be a key enabler for continued stablecoin development. There is currently a lack of clarity and guidelines which is making it hard for generally accepted stablecoins to be established. Furthermore, the general consensus is that stablecoins and central bank digital currencies will co-exist in the future monetary system in the long-term, where each technology will have different use cases.