Fiat currency. A fiat currency — such as dollars, euros, pounds, or yen—is a trusted medium of exchange, or legal tender, that is issued by a recognized government or authority. U.S. dollars, for example, are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States government.
“I haven’t encountered many who would try to put up more barriers for new users,” said Maria Shen, a partner at Electric Capital, a venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrencies. Still, she added, “the wallet space is fairly competitive, so it’s not unthinkable.”

“Volatility is as old as the hills, and it’s not going anywhere,” Noble says. “It’s something you have to deal with.”
Each asset holds a value, often priced in U.S. dollars, which leads to another use case: trading and investing. Aside from stablecoins — which seek to stabilize the instability of cryptocurrencies by pegging an asset to something else, such as the U.S. dollar — most cryptocurrencies constantly fluctuate in price. You can trade between cryptocurrencies and national currencies (called fiat currencies) on exchanges, depending on the trading pairs available on the platform of choice.