History

Spent some time over the weekend learning about the origin of Eurodollars, which have many analogs to stablecoins today.

Pretty similar story in that Eurodollars were initially ignored as a niche market, then seen as a threat when the market grew 50x in 10 years, then ultimately seen as a tool for US foreign policy.

This evolution was not automatic, it was the result of the fed engineering USD settlement for oil in the 70s, which was desirable because of cartel pricing in the oil market during the Yom Kippur War. Winning this agreement with the Saudi's was in part possible because of the scale/liquidity of the Eurodollar market.