Blockchains, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies are reaching further global adoption each day and are becoming more prominent to be the foundation for a new technological era and to be used in transactions globally. The technology has strong coherent properties, including a high level of security, decentralization, and its use of smart contracts to obviate intermediaries. These technologies offer the possibility to do any transaction without a centralized bank controlling, denying, or reversing the transaction. This report aims to shed light on blockchain technologies possible impact on society and if the current centralized-based system can be replaced or if it is deemed as necessary. What the potential outcome would be if these centralized authorities sees a decrease in power and how blockchains, smart contracts and stablecoins can be used as an everyday payment and transaction system, excluding all third parties. To do this, a literature review, a quantitative survey, and qualitative interviews were conducted. The literature review, to lay the ground for the questions in the survey, interviews, and additionally, to determine what blockchain and what kind of stablecoin is most suited for global adoption. The result from the qualitative interview were to acquire knowledge from more experienced individuals working or owning a company that is based on top of blockchains. Lastly, considering blockchain technology and web 3.0 is still under development and yet to become globally accepted, the questionnaire survey was conducted to retrieve the general consensus from individuals inside crypto communities. The report overall, came out to be successful, indicating that blockchain technologies has a bright future and that the decentralization it adds to society can benefit the individual in multiple of different ways, specifically in the financial sector. However, although the conclusion that blockchain technologies can be used as a global payment system were deemed successful, objective, and subjective opinions were discussed and reported relevant, whereas one individual might view the exclusion of intermediaries as necessary and beneficial, while the other – as something negative. Scalability issues in blockchains and smart contracts controversy, such as its complexity and its immutability aspect are also analyzed and discussed as a potential hindrance for further global adoption.

The emergence of stablecoins and their current implementations share many similarities to the American free banking era. This was an era with economically inefficient money and payment systems, where banks issued private money that were fully redeemable in theory but not always in practice. As of today, parts of the monetary and payment systems can also be considered inefficient, and a digital currency such as a stablecoin could provide significant improvements in areas such as cross-border payments, financial inclusion, as well as contribute to a more robust monetary system.  This thesis aims to help contribute insights into how the future payment systems may look like, with a specific focus on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The emergence of the two technologies are closely interlinked, and are currently in an early state of coexistence. This qualitative study investigates the sentiment regarding the future development of stablecoins and their possible continued coexistence with CBDCs. Semi-structured interviews were held with participants from three categories of the Swedish corporate landscape; cryptocurrency innovators and investors, state representatives, and corporate representatives. The main conclusions were was that in the short term, regulations will be a key enabler for continued stablecoin development. There is currently a lack of clarity and guidelines which is making it hard for generally accepted stablecoins to be established. Furthermore, the general consensus is that stablecoins and central bank digital currencies will co-exist in the future monetary system in the long-term, where each technology will have different use cases. / Framväxten av stablecoins och dess nuvarande implementationer delar många likheter med den amerikanska ”free-banking” eran. Detta var en tidsepok med ekonomiskt ineffektiva pengar och betalsystem, där banker emitterade pengar som skulle vara fullt inlösningsbara teorin, men inte alltid i praktiken. Även idag kan delar av penga- och betalsystemen anses vara ineffektiva, och en digital valuta såsom en stablecoin skulle kunna bidra med betydande förbättringar inom områden såsom utrikesbetalningar, finansiell inkludering, samt bistå i utvecklingen av ett mer robust pengasystem. Denna uppsats ämnar bidra med insikter om hur framtidens betalsystem kan se ut, med ett specifikt fokus på stablecoins och centralbanksvalutor (eng. central bank digital currencies, CBDCs). Framväxten av de två teknologierna är nära relaterade, och för närvarande samexisterar dessa i ett tidigt stadie. Denna kvalitativa studie undersöker sentimentet kring den framtida utvecklingen av stablecoins och dess möjliga fortsatta samexistens med centralbanksvalutor. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer hölls med deltagare från tre kategorier av svenskt näringsliv: innovatörer och investerare inom kryptovalutor, företrädare för staten, samt bolagsrepresentanter. De huvudsakliga slutsatserna var att på kort sikt kommer regleringar vara viktiga för att möjliggöra fortsatt utveckling av stablecoins. I dagsläget saknas det klarhet och riktlinjer vilket gör det svårt för en generellt accepterad stablecoin att utvecklas. Vidare så är den generella uppfattningen att stablecoins och centralbanksvalutor kommer samexistera i framtidens betalsystem, då de båda teknikerna kommer ha olika användningsområden