Cryptocurrency developers have recently become preoccupied with something they previously eschewed: stability.

To some degree this was predictable. The appeal of highly volatile currencies backed by absolutely nothing but speculator faith was always going to be limited. If everyone uses a different type of money with a different value, the very point of money — a common ground for all users — is undermined.

To combat this, the sector has begun embracing something called stablecoins. To avoid the wild fluctuations common for conventional cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are backed by assets, allowing their values to be pegged to government-issued currencies such as dollars, euros and even the renminbi. The best known is Facebook’s proposed Libra. But existing crypto stablecoins such as Tether — which operate in a similar to non-crypto payment systems such as Kenya’s Mpesa and China’s WeChat — already boast more than $4bn in dollar assets.