> There are stablecoins backed by USD reserves, like USDC. Again, the ethereum contract is only a ledger. The people responsible for giving you USD is going to be Gemini who control the supply of USDC. You having proof that you own USDC allows you to withdraw USD.
This still depends on trust. The blockchain doesn’t verify the backing. And USDC’s attestation is rather late.
Well, yeah, it's a centralized stablecoin. The advantage is that it can be used in Ethereum contracts in DeFi. If you want a stablecoin with no trust assumptions (other than the protocol and governance), there's MakerDAO's DAI.
This still depends on trust. The blockchain doesn’t verify the backing. And USDC’s attestation is rather late.