imo, it is a form of regulatory arbitrage. It's true that you're getting "US dollars" into the hands of people who want them, but it's mainly because the legal and regulatory frameworks haven't caught up to how to deal with them.

It reminds me a bit of Uber, which also started with some regulatory arbitrage, because they weren't regulated in the same way as traditional taxis.

The difference is that Uber had an underlying core of economic value. Firstly, because traditional taxis were monopolized, but also secondly, the app-based ride-sharing framework allowed non-professional taxi drivers to enter the market on a flexible part-time basis using capital they already owned.

So the question with stablecoins is: what's the underlying core of economic value? I suppose, from a near-term perspective, anything pegged to the dollar is more desirable than many national currencies worldwide. So that's an economic value... but it seems circumstantial rather than having anything to do with the fundamental characteristics of stablecoins. Another issue is this tricky little detail about the peg. Can they really maintain the peg and can they be trusted to?