“10 Tether Coins Now?” Temporal Discounting for Stablecoins

Stablecoins are digital tokens that are pegged to fiat-currencies (i.e., government-issued currencies). Because stablecoins represent a large chunk of the cryptocurrency market, we, for the first time, investigated a key process of decision making (i.e., temporal discounting) in stablecoins holders. We used an online survey and invited cryptocurrency holders to answer a temporal discounting questionnaire dealing with Tether stables coins (USDT) (“What do you prefer: you get 10 USDT now or 100 USDT in a month?”). We also implemented a typical temporal discounting questionnaire dealing with fiat money (“What do you prefer: you get 10 USD now or 100 USD in a month?”). Results have demonstrated no significant differences between temporal discounting for USDT and USD in stablecoins holders; however, both temporal discounting for USDT and USD were higher than the mean. Considering the volume of stablecoins, our study is very relevant, as it demonstrates the short-term time horizons in stablecoins holders, that is, their preference for immediate, over delayed but larger, rewards.