Author: Liu Honglin

On April 26, 1956, an old oil tanker named "Ideal X" slowly sailed out of the Port of Newark. Its hold contained no gold, oil, or important politicians, but rather 58 sealed metal boxes of uniform size. At this moment, humanity first witnessed the true significance of the "container."

There were no welcoming crowds, no media coverage. But historians, looking back, have determined that this day's significance is no less than the roar of the steam engine or the birth of the internet. This metal box wasn't a commodity itself, but it reshaped the way goods moved; it didn't shorten the oceans, but it completely restructured the global supply chain.

Decades later, in the distant digital world, another "standard" was quietly emerging. Its goal, likewise, wasn't to change the nature of money, but to provide a unified interface for global currency circulation. Today, we're still unsure whether it will ever achieve the same status as the container, but it already possesses all the makings of a great invention: misunderstood, resisted, underestimated—yet it changed the world.

A tin box changed the world

Global shipping in the 1950s was a chaotic landscape.

Different countries, ports, and companies used different boxes, dock structures, and loading and unloading regulations. Every international shipment was a multilingual negotiation and compromise, fraught with misunderstandings, delays, and costs.

Back then, loading a ship required hundreds of dock workers to spend three days or more loading bags and boxes of cargo onto a vessel. Unloading was a nightmare: cargo was often misplaced, dropped, or even stolen. Every port transfer meant unpacking and repacking, resulting in a cargo damage rate exceeding 8% and staggering labor costs.

The "Ideal X" set sail with just 58 boxes. But the efficiency revolution it brought about cannot be ignored. According to data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the adoption of containerized shipping saw loading and unloading costs plummet from $5.86 per ton to $0.16, a drop of over 97%. Shipping times were also reduced from weeks to days. Port operation time was shortened from 72 hours to less than 8 hours, and turnover rates increased more than eightfold. The changes in employment structure were even more dramatic. The Port of New York employed 1.4 million man-days in 1963, but by 1975, that had fallen to 127,000 man-days, a 91% reduction. An entire industry was redefined. People were no longer the protagonists; standards became the order of things. The structure of global trade also changed accordingly. In the 1970s, ISO adopted the 20-foot and 40-foot containers as internationally standardized, and global ports, trucks, warehouses, and ships restructured their systems around these two dimensions. Competition among shipping companies has shifted from a competition of manpower and effort to a competition of efficiency and network.

Researchers Bernhofen and others have estimated that containerization increased bilateral trade between participating countries by 790%, while any other free trade agreement at the time saw only a 45% increase. This isn't an exaggeration; it's historical reality. China's export miracle, the rise of manufacturing in Southeast Asia, and Walmart's global supply chain model were all indirectly created by that metal box.

A country can be without ports, but it must be compatible with containers; a factory can be without a brand, but it must understand the container shipping process.

Over the course of two decades, this metal box has reshaped the entire world's production and distribution logic.

The Misunderstood Stablecoin: The "Container" of the Digital World

When they were first introduced, stablecoins were considered "technically insignificant."

In the eyes of geeks, they weren't innovative; in the eyes of Bitcoin believers, they weren't decentralized enough. In the eyes of traditional financial regulators, it disrupts order, evades regulation, and constitutes a "gray area."

But what it's doing is precisely embedding internet liquidity into a consensus-based monetary standard.

If Bitcoin represents an attempt to decentralize monetary power, then stablecoins offer standardization and improved efficiency in transaction processes. Stablecoins don't have macro-governance objectives like central bank digital currencies, nor do they explore the boundaries of risk and return like DeFi. They simply do one thing: make "stable money" flow like code.

And the results have far exceeded expectations.

By 2025, global on-chain stablecoin transactions will exceed $27 trillion, approaching the annual total of global bank card payment systems. Tether (USDT) accounts for nearly 60% of this, with a market capitalization exceeding $155 billion.

The advantage of stablecoins lies not in their value but in their on-chain liquidity. It facilitates cross-chain, cross-national, and cross-account clearing, enabling a Ugandan fruit exporter to receive payment within five minutes, rather than having to wait five days for a bank wire.

According to McKinsey and Chainalysis data, cross-border payment fees for stablecoins are as low as $0.01. Compared to the average 6.6% fee and 3-7-day settlement period for traditional SWIFT, this represents an order of magnitude improvement in both cost and efficiency.

Of even greater structural significance is financial inclusion.

Over 1.7 billion adults worldwide do not have bank accounts, but the majority have smartphones. A wallet + a stablecoin = a simple bank account. No KYC or credit score required; simply a USDT address allows you to receive payments, transfer funds, and manage your finances. In countries like Nigeria, Venezuela, and Argentina, stablecoins are practically an alternative currency—an anchor for exchange rates, a safe haven against inflation, and a legitimate alternative to private currencies.

During the war in Ukraine, stablecoins became the "digital cash" of refugees, enabling fundraising, distribution, and procurement through Telegram bots, without relying on any government or bank.

From cross-border payments, remittances, and payroll to Web3 on-chain settlement protocols and AI-powered smart settlement accounts, stablecoins are becoming the world's "digital containers"—they may not be the headlines of a financial revolution, but they are the "underpinning" of the financial system.

Why is it "standards," not "technology," that change the world?

Why are technological revolutions often silent? Why are the truly reshaping of the world order not those dazzling, explosive innovations, but rather those "standards" that quietly creep into the cracks of every system?

Because standards aren't inventions; they are order.

Technology can be closed and localized, but standards must be shared and system-wide. They rely not on performance leadership but on widespread acceptance.

Containers aren't high-tech, but because they're accessible to everyone, they've become the foundation of global shipping. They aren't the product of one company, but the interface layer for an entire industry. Today, over 90% of global international trade still relies on standardized containers for logistics.

Stablecoins are following a similar path: they aren't the triumph of a single protocol, but rather the gradual mainstream adoption of a universal liquidity standard. They're not the end of the transformation, but the beginning of a new order. This is the true power of standards—enabling distrustful people and systems to collaborate without negotiation.

The Undervalued Present, the Shaping of the Future

We're standing in the "1956" of stablecoin history.

It hasn't yet become a global, mainstream standard. Regulators around the world are still weighing its legality; traditional finance still views it as a "temporary tool"; and most users don't know whether they're using USDT, USDC, or DAI.

But the order is quietly shifting.

Hong Kong has passed the Stablecoin Ordinance, and the US is also promoting compliant issuance. Payment giants like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe have announced stablecoin compatibility. Chipper Cash in Africa and Bitso in Latin America have become digital banks primarily based on stablecoins.

From the cryptocurrency world to payments, from payments to applications, and from applications to the protocol layer—stablecoins are becoming the "universal interface of the global internet economy." This potential stems not from complexity but from their simplicity, universality, and neutrality.

It may not replace central bank currencies, but it could become the "underlying settlement protocol" for collaboration and value circulation among new systems like Web3, AI, and the IoT.

We will eventually understand that it's often not the most imaginative inventions that change the world, but the least noticed "standards."

Containers didn't change the power of ships, but they changed the way goods are transported around the world. Containers didn't eliminate ports, but they made them more efficient.

Stablecoins won't replace banks, but they will make "banking functionality" an open-source option. Stablecoins haven't reshaped the essence of money, but they could reshape the boundaries of clearing, collaboration, and financial coverage.

The future global clearing network may be woven from algorithms, smart contracts, and consensus mechanisms, with its underlying units of circulation likely being digital "containers" defined by code.

It's quietly moving, yet it's shaking up the world.