Date Published: October 5, 2022
Comments Due:
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Author(s)
Peter Mell (NIST), Dylan Yaga (NIST)
Announcement
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that aim to maintain a stable price relative to a specified asset (usually a fiat currency). Much has been written about how to use stablecoins and about the economic implications of doing so (specifically price variability), but little has been written on the technical mechanisms and architectures used and related security considerations. NIST IR 8408 addresses this by providing an evaluation of the technical design of different stablecoin architectures along with related security analyses.
NOTE: A call for patent claims is included on page iv of this draft. For additional information, see the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) Patent Policy – Inclusion of Patents in ITL Publications.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose price is pegged to that of another asset (typically one with low price volatility). The market for stablecoins has grown tremendously – up to almost $200 billion USD in 2022. These coins are being used extensively in newly developing paradigms for digital money and commerce as well as for decentralized finance technology. This work provides a technical description of stablecoin technology to enable reader understanding of the variety of ways in which stablecoins are architected and implemented. This includes a descriptive definition, commonly found properties, and distinguishing characteristics, as well as an exploration of stablecoin taxonomies, descriptions of the most common types, and examples from a list of top stablecoins by market capitalization. This document also explores related security, safety, and trust issues with an analysis conducted from a computer science and information technology security perspective as opposed to the financial analysis and economics focus of much of the stablecoin literature.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose price is pegged to that of another asset (typically one with low price volatility). The market for stablecoins has grown tremendously – up to almost $200 billion USD in 2022. These coins are being used extensively in newly developing paradigms for digital money...
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Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose price is pegged to that of another asset (typically one with low price volatility). The market for stablecoins has grown tremendously – up to almost $200 billion USD in 2022. These coins are being used extensively in newly developing paradigms for digital money and commerce as well as for decentralized finance technology. This work provides a technical description of stablecoin technology to enable reader understanding of the variety of ways in which stablecoins are architected and implemented. This includes a descriptive definition, commonly found properties, and distinguishing characteristics, as well as an exploration of stablecoin taxonomies, descriptions of the most common types, and examples from a list of top stablecoins by market capitalization. This document also explores related security, safety, and trust issues with an analysis conducted from a computer science and information technology security perspective as opposed to the financial analysis and economics focus of much of the stablecoin literature.
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Keywords
blockchain; cryptocurrency; decentralized finance; security; smart contract; stablecoin
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