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by icapybara 1493 days ago
I don't think this answer's OP's questions. Why can't you easily transact real USD?
2 comments

Transacting USD requires access to legacy payment systems, such as the Federal Reserve's ACH. This system is heavily permissioned and requires a bank partner, with layers of middle-persons in between you and the Fed. It also runs on 1970s mainframe technology and has substantial clearing delays. This is currently the closest thing to an inter-party settlement system. Other payment providers exist outside of this, but don't have a great alternative to ACH for transacting between platforms, so they are islands with a few point-to-point bridges (think Venmo). Stablecoins potentially provide a fast and relatively permissionless platform to move USD (or other currencies) from owner to owner, essentially instantly. I think there are huge benefits to this and so stablecoin settlment will slowly "eat" the alternative systems as a result.

This is not to say that the transition will be straightforward. There are still many issues around transaction reversibility (ACH is reversible for a short period of time, due to trust relationships between banks) and fraud and money-laundering: not to mention that stablecoin regulation is still a work in progress and funds aren't FDIC insured. But I expect that some of these issues will get solved, and the tech will gradually replace ACH etc.

USD isn’t tokenized — it can’t be placed on a crypto wallet and transacted on a blockchain. So essentially you have to create a token that represents $1 in order to use real currency in crypto trading.