Network.
Sending USD from random bank from random country to another random bank from another random country is a network problem. While it’s solved by SEPA in EUR to EUR countries by pan european clearing and settlement systems, out in the big world it’s not as simple. Specially considering cross-border.
You have to somehow get the payment message across banks and decide on how to settle. It fundamentally a hard problem.
Stable cryptos put the message and settlement in the same system and it’s a global one (not just EU/wtv). The problem is then, which stable crypto? The moment the Fed has a USD crypto, our ECB has an Eur crypto, than that problem is solved. In the meanwhile, joining a big stable usd crypto might still provide you better remittance routes (and settlement) than sending messages over swift.
Tldr: stablecoins solve remittance routing “edge cases”, if the stablecoin is adopted enough
If Bank of America let anyone in the world easily open a checking account, this wouldn’t be a problem right? But they don’t do that, because of regulations and KYC etc.
Similarly, if BoA supported an Ethereum stablecoin but a random bank in Argentina supports a Solana stablecoin, it’s still going to be a pain to transfer money right?
I’m struggling to see how this is a blockchain issue rather than a regulatory + agreement on international standard issue.
What I have missed with stablecoins is that how they fix the final settlement. That is say you send money from USA to say Somalia or North Korea. Who in those countries will have dollars most likely to give out for the stablecoin?
Paper dollars are a common store of value in emerging markets. Trading digital dollars for paper dollars, is becoming as common as paper foreign exchange
There are already hawala / xawala money transfer services in Somalia that will exchange cryptocurrencies for physical dollars or local currency, or load value onto a local phone app. Does that answer your question? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
The final settlement inside Somalia or North Korea isn't necessary because they can buy things from other countries where those people can do the settlement. Just like if you have US dollar bills in Somalia, they have value even if there is no nearby ATM you can find to deposit them.
In practice, everyone just has binance app and pays each other stablecoins within that platform