Welcome to Money for the rest of us. This is a personal finance show on money, how it works,

how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it. I'm your host, David Stein, today is

episode 527. It's titled Stable Coins and CBDCs, their rise, risks, and possibilities.

Last week, Circle Internet Group, ticker CRCL, conducted an initial public offering.

Circle is the issuer of the USDC stable coin with over $60 billion of USDC outstanding.

The IPO price was $31 a share, and it has soared to over $100 per share.

It's been about three years since we've taken a close look at stable coins. In this episode,

we want to understand how they have evolved, what's their use case, what are

their risks, and whether this is something we should even use.

Now, as a review, let's think about the different types of money.

The first type of money we think about is currency.

This is central bank money.

The central bank can create money out of thin air.

If you hold a U.S. dollar bill, it says it's a Federal Reserve note.

It is issued by the Federal Reserve.

This is public money.

We can use it anonymously in many cases, unless you're trying to transport over $10,000 worth.

But for smaller transactions, we can pay cash.

It's not tracked.

Generally, we have that anonymity.

And it's physical.

We can hold these coins and bills.

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