• Shah Ramezani, Founder and CEO at Noah


• 07.08.2025 11:45 am
#DigitalMoney #ProgrammableDollars

Payments have always been a tug-of-war between speed and accountability. Stablecoins finally deliver both for the first time in 200 years

Throughout history we’ve always had to pick a side when it came to making payments. Bearer bonds were fast but anonymous. Traveler’s checks were trusted but slow. Debit cards promised real-time approval but trapped money in batch files and fee stacks. 

Every leap forward in trust meant sacrificing speed. Every acceleration came at the cost of control. Not anymore. Stablecoins finally close the loop by delivering real-time, programmable dollars – dollars with public integrity and built-in compliance – that move at API speed, settle 24/7, and still respect the identity boundaries of real-world commerce.

For the first time in 200 years, we have a payment system without compromise. 

Bearer bonds: speed without identity

In the 19th century, bearer bonds let capital sprint. Ownership wasn’t recorded; the bonds belonged to whoever held the paper. No registrars, no networks, just a signature and a handshake. But the anonymity that made them so valuable also made them vulnerable. Tax evasion, capital flight, and loss from theft or damage were inevitable. By the 1980s, new issuance was banned across the US and Europe and bearer bonds faded into pop culture – from Die Hard to Kaleidoscope – as the currency of choice for fictional heists.

Traveller’s checks: trust without velocity

American Express’ Traveller’s checks swung the pendulum the other way. With its pre-printed drafts signed on purchase and verified on redemption, it brought brand-backed trust to global spending. But every transaction depended on business hours. Tied to one identity and cleared through physical processing, they were reliable but inflexible, what they offered in reliability, they lost in flexibility. 

Debit cards: network trust, network friction

Debit cards then pushed ID checks onto the network. A magnetic stripe or chip confirmed your account in seconds and authorisation became real-time. Yet settlement remained stuck in 1970s batch files. Merchants waited days to get paid, losing time, liquidity, and margins to fees and chargebacks.

Stablecoins: programmable trust and velocity

Stablecoins fix what their predecessors couldn’t. Well-run stablecoins wrap a cash reserve in code – delivering the speed of bearer bonds with the accountability legacy systems always lacked.

Issuers such as Circle post monthly attestations from Grant Thornton confirming every token is backed one-to-one by short-dated Treasuries or bank cash, giving holders the same “call-it-in-for-cash” certainty traveler’s checks once offered, only now the proof sits on a public ledger, not in a branch file.

And unlike bearer bonds, stablecoins are traceable. Every transaction is public. Wallets can be mapped to known users and identities only surface where needed, preserving privacy while enabling regulation. While issuers retain controls to freeze flagged wallets. This is accountability in code – and with the new GENIUS Act, such standards are now law. 

Setting money free

However, the real leap is programmability. Stablecoins settle in seconds, 24/7, across borders. They live on blockchains that don’t close overnight or wait for batch sweeps. Business logic – escrow, streaming payments, milestone triggers – can be coded into the money itself. In short, the trade-off is over. 

Throughout history, payment systems have asked us to compromise. Stablecoins show us we don’t have to. Far from being a new invention, they’re the natural conclusion of a two centuries-long sprint to setting money free.