Stablecoin
A token designed to hold a constant value against a reference asset, usually the US dollar, backed either by reserves held off-chain or by on-chain collateral and algorithmic mechanisms.
The peg is a design goal, not a property. What supports it — audited fiat reserves, over-collateralised crypto, or an algorithm — determines what happens under stress, and those three have behaved very differently. Regulated fiat-backed stablecoins also grant their issuers freeze and blacklist powers by design, which we present as issuer controls rather than as defects.