Stablecoin Comparison: Which One Keeps Its Value Best?

When you hear stablecoin, a cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, usually tied to a fiat currency like the US dollar. Also known as digital dollar, it lets you hold crypto without riding wild price swings. Not every stablecoin is built the same. Some are backed by cash in a bank. Others use complex crypto collateral. A few even claim to be algorithmic—meaning they rely on code, not cash, to stay pegged. That difference matters more than you think.

The most common ones you’ll see are USDT, Tether’s stablecoin, the oldest and most traded, but with a history of opaque reserves, USDC, Circle’s dollar-backed token, fully audited and regulated in the U.S., DAI, a decentralized stablecoin backed by crypto assets like ETH, managed by smart contracts on MakerDAO, and BUSD, Binance’s stablecoin, backed by cash and regulated by New York’s banking authority. Each has trade-offs. USDT moves fast and is everywhere, but if you care about transparency, its reserve reports have raised red flags before. USDC is cleaner, but if you’re outside the U.S., it’s harder to buy directly. DAI doesn’t need a bank—it runs on crypto—but if ETH crashes hard, DAI can get unstable. BUSD is reliable, but Binance’s legal troubles in 2023 made some users nervous.

These aren’t just technical details. They affect your money. If you’re using a stablecoin to send money across borders, you want one that won’t suddenly lose its peg. If you’re staking it in DeFi, you need to know if the backing is real or just promises. And if you’re in a country with strict capital controls, like Nigeria or Argentina, your choice might be limited by what exchanges allow. That’s why people in sanctioned countries often pick USDC or DAI—they’re harder to freeze than bank-linked options. The same logic applies to traders: they avoid stablecoins with weak audits because a 1% drop in value can wipe out a whole trade.

What you’ll find below isn’t a list of the top five stablecoins. It’s a collection of real stories—what happened when a stablecoin failed, why one exchange stopped supporting a token, how users lost money trusting the wrong one, and why some projects quietly disappeared after a run on their reserves. These aren’t theoretical risks. They’ve already happened. And they’ll happen again if you don’t know the difference between a dollar in a vault and a dollar in a smart contract.