Stablecoins & Payments

About this course

Stablecoins are the largest single category of on-chain economic activity by transfer volume and one of the least-well-understood. This course takes you from 'they're supposed to be worth a dollar' to operating-grade literacy: the three structural designs and where each fails, the difference between an attestation and an audit (and why nearly every major stablecoin only publishes the former), the actual mechanics of the Terra/UST collapse and the USDC/SVB weekend, where stablecoin payments genuinely beat traditional rails, and the regulatory frameworks that are starting to define which designs survive. Seven lessons of about 20 minutes each. No yield strategies, no buying recommendations, no financial advice — just the structural understanding that lets you evaluate any new stablecoin against the patterns we have already seen.

What you'll be able to do

• Distinguish fiat-backed, crypto-collateralized, and algorithmic stablecoin designs structurally — and predict the failure mode of each before it happens.
• Read an attestation report critically; know exactly what it does and doesn't prove about reserves.
• Explain the Terra/UST collapse (May 2022) and the USDC/SVB weekend (March 2023) at a mechanism level — and understand why one recovered and one didn't.
• Identify the real payment-flow use cases where stablecoins meaningfully outperform fiat rails (cross-border remittance, B2B settlement, payroll in unstable currencies).
• Map the major regulatory frameworks (MiCA in the EU, NYDFS Trust Charter in the US, Singapore MAS PS Act, UK FSMA stablecoin rules) onto the designs they affect.
• Evaluate counterparty and chain risk for a stablecoin balance — what holding USDC on chain X actually exposes you to.
• Recognize marketing claims that don't match the underlying mechanics.

Lessons

1. 1

   Lesson 1 — The three structural designs and where each fails

   ~22 min

   Fiat-backed, crypto-collateralized, algorithmic. Today: how each is supposed to work, the load-bearing assumption each makes, and the specific way each one fails.

2. 2

   Lesson 2 — Attestations vs audits: what monthly reports actually prove

   ~20 min

   Every major fiat-backed stablecoin publishes an 'attestation.' Almost none publish full audits. Today: the technical difference, why it matters, and what gaps remain.

3. 3

   Lesson 3 — Depegs in depth: TerraUSD, USDC/SVB, and why one recovered

   ~22 min

   Two of the most-studied depeg events in crypto history. Today: the mechanism behind each, why they look superficially similar, and why one was terminal while the other was a 72-hour story.

4. 4

   Lesson 4 — Stablecoin payments: where they actually beat fiat rails

   ~22 min

   Stablecoins are marketed as 'better payments.' For most users in most situations they aren't. Today: the specific flows where they genuinely outperform, and the ones where the marketing doesn't match.

5. 5

   Lesson 5 — Regulatory frameworks: MiCA, NYDFS, MAS, FSMA

   ~22 min

   Stablecoin regulation moved from speculative discussion to enforced regimes between 2023 and 2025. Today: what each framework actually requires, where they overlap, and which designs each effectively prohibits.

6. 6

   Lesson 6 — Counterparty and chain risk: what holding USDC on chain X actually exposes you to

   ~22 min

   Holding USDC on Ethereum is not the same exposure as holding USDC on Solana, Polygon, or a bridge wrapper. Today: the actual risk stack underneath the same ticker symbol.

7. 7

   Lesson 7 — Real use cases vs the marketing: closing the structural-literacy gap

   ~20 min

   Course closing: where stablecoins genuinely deliver economic value, where they don't, and the questions that separate substantive use cases from marketing.

Final quiz

When you've worked through every lesson, pass the final quiz to mark the course complete. You can retry any number of times.