Jeremy Allaire, a man whose beard would frighten even the sturdiest banker, found himself standing on the threshold of the unknown—a threshold not unlike that mysterious spring morning before the Battle of Borodino, except with less cannon fire and more bored program managers. With prophetic gravity, he declared that the humble stablecoin, long dismissed as “just another coin,” now swelled with potential, poised in trembling anticipation before its own iPhone moment. This was not the moment of grand revelation, oh no—but the anxious, caffeinated pause before developers swarmed in, building their digital cathedrals upon its foundations.
On the vast digital steppe of X, Allaire opined, as only a man with too many screens and too few serfs could:
“The highest utility form of money ever created. And we are not quite yet at the iPhone moment when developers everywhere realize the power and opportunity of programmable digital dollars on the Internet in the same way they saw the unlock of programmable mobile devices. Soon.”
— Jeremy Allaire – jda.eth / jdallaire.sol (@jerallaire) June 14, 2025 📱
One might imagine this message carried by telegram from the front, but no, he was merely replying to Sam Broner, a comrade-in-arms at a16z Crypto, who—speaking with gusto—suggested stablecoins could utterly upend the mighty citadel of fintech (known to some as “The Bankers’ Last Stand”).
“Stablecoins are better because they encourage competition. Now anyone can program money,” Broner wrote, presumably from a chaise longue somewhere expensive, “the fixed and marginal costs of building a fintech are lower. More competition means better prices, better experiences, more access.” In other words, let a thousand apps bloom—and hope none of them steal your wallet.
Broner, with the wisdom of a soothsayer and the zeal of a Napoleon, declared that not only were speed and lower fees at stake, but freedom—permissionless programmability! As if the world had longed, since Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden, for money that did not question their intentions.
Allaire, growing ever more evangelical, pointed to the soldiers gathering on the corporate front. “Look!” he cried, “Walmart and Amazon—the Napoleons and Kutuzovs of retail—are flirting with stablecoins!” The world’s emperors, apparently, would soon wield not only the ruble and dollar, but programmable internet dollars that could, conceivably, buy anything from a potato to an overpriced armchair.
Shopify, never content with mere observation, had already joined the fray, collaborating with Coinbase to unleash the mighty USDC payments upon the people, as if they were bestowing bread during a siege. Their CEO, Tobi Lutke—himself no stranger to existential musings—boldly announced: “We think that stablecoins are a natural way to transact on the internet.” Truly, if Dostoevsky had been a Shopify vendor, he might have said the same (with more existential dread).
The Shopify experiment, then, is not merely an experiment—no more so than crossing the Berezina under fire is “just a stroll”; it is a clarion, a shot across the bow, a “signal” that the world of commerce teeters on the brink of transformation. Or perhaps, just another Thursday.
Regulation: The Great Russian Winter
But what of law, you ask, dear reader? What tsar will rein in this unruly army of digital rubles? Enter the GENIUS Act: a grandiose acronym (clearly crafted by someone who never had to brand a potato) proposing collateral standards and anti-money laundering so the United States might one day embrace stablecoins without risk of disgrace, scandal, or awkward Congressional hearings.
Allaire, like an old general surveying the frosty plains, does not declare victory yet. “Soon,” he whispers, as if afraid Napoleon might overhear. But as developers tinker, retailers plot, and legislators draft grand treaties, one wonders—has the moment not already begun?
In 2007, a device changed the world, not because it could make phone calls (which it did, sometimes), but because it became a platform for dreams, schemes, and an endless parade of cat memes. Will stablecoins do the same? In Russia, we drink to survive the winter. Perhaps, in the coming age, we will pay for our vodka with a stablecoin.
Here’s to the next “iPhone moment”—may it arrive before anyone figures out how to lose their fortune on programmable potatoes! 🥔💸
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2025-06-15 14:45