From Containers to Stablecoins: Standards Change the World

Author: Liu Honglin

On April 26, 1956, in Newark Harbor, an old tanker named "Ideal X" slowly sailed out of the port. In its hold, there were no gold, oil, or important political figures, but 58 uniformly sized, sealed metal tin boxes. At that moment, humanity first witnessed the true meaning of "container."

There were no welcoming crowds, nor media coverage. But historians later looked back and determined that the significance of this day was no less than the roar of the steam engine or the birth of the internet. This metal box is not the commodity itself, but it has reshaped the way commodities flow; it has not shortened the distance across the oceans, but has completely reorganized the structure of global supply chains.

Yet, decades later, in the distant digital world, another "standard" is quietly rising. Its goal is also not to change the essence of currency, but to provide a unified interface for the circulation of global currency. Today, we still cannot determine whether it can attain a status similar to that of the "container," but it already possesses all the conditions of a great invention: being misunderstood, resisted, and underestimated—yet changing the world.

A world changed by a tin box

The global shipping of the 1950s was a chaotic place.

Different countries, ports, and companies use different containers, dock structures, and loading and unloading rules. Each international shipment is a multilingual negotiation and compromise, filled with misunderstandings, delays, and costs.

At that time, it took several hundred dock workers a full three days or even longer to load bags and boxes of goods onto a ship. Unloading was even more of a nightmare: goods were often misplaced, dropped, or even stolen. Every transfer at the port meant unpacking and reloading, with a damage rate of over 8%, and labor costs were astonishingly high.

The launch of the "Ideal X" involved just 58 containers. However, the efficiency revolution it brought cannot be ignored. According to data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), after adopting container shipping, the loading and unloading costs plummeted from $5.86 per ton to $0.16, a decrease of over 97%. Shipping times were also compressed from several weeks to just a few days. Port operation times were reduced from 72 hours to less than 8 hours, with turnover rates increasing by more than 8 times.

The changes in the employment structure have become even more severe. The Port of New York used 1.4 million man-days of labor in 1963, which fell to 127,000 man-days by 1975, a decrease of 91%. An entire industry has been redefined.

People are no longer the main characters; the standard has become the order.

The structure of global trade has also changed accordingly. In the 1970s, ISO adopted 20-foot and 40-foot containers as the international standard, leading global ports, trucks, warehouses, and ships to restructure their systems around these two sizes. Competition among shipping companies has shifted from relying on manpower to focusing on efficiency and networks.

Researchers such as Bernhofen have estimated that containerization has increased the bilateral trade volume among participating countries by 790%, while the growth rate for any form of free trade agreement at that time was only 45%. This is not an exaggeration, but a historical reality. China's export miracle, Southeast Asia's manufacturing rise, and Walmart's global supply chain model are all indirectly created by that metal box.

A country can be without ports, but it cannot be incompatible with containers; a factory can lack a brand, but it must understand the shipping process of containers.

This metal box has restructured the entire production and distribution logic of the Earth over the course of twenty years.

Misunderstood Stablecoins: The "Containers" of the Digital World

Stablecoins were initially considered to have "no technical content."

In the eyes of geeks, it is not innovation; in the eyes of Bitcoin believers, it is not sufficiently "decentralized." And in the eyes of traditional financial regulators, it disrupts order and evades regulation, being a "gray area."

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

If Bitcoin represents an attempt at the decentralization of monetary power, then stablecoins bring about the standardization of transaction processes and optimization of efficiency. Stablecoins do not have the macro governance objectives of central bank digital currencies, nor do they explore the boundaries of risk and return like DeFi. They do just one thing: allow "stable money" to flow like code.

The outcome of this matter far exceeded expectations.

By 2025, the global on-chain transaction volume of stablecoins will exceed 27 trillion USD, approaching the annual total of the global card payment system. Among them, Tether (USDT) accounts for nearly 60%, with a market capitalization of over 155 billion USD.

The advantage of stablecoins lies not in the value of the coin itself, but in its on-chain liquidity. It facilitates clearing scenarios across chains, countries, and accounts, allowing a fruit exporter in Uganda to receive payment within 5 minutes, without having to wait for a bank wire transfer five days later.

According to data from McKinsey and Chainalysis, the cross-border payment fees for stablecoins are as low as $0.01, compared to an average fee of 6.6% for traditional SWIFT with a delivery period of 3-7 days, resulting in a significant improvement in cost and efficiency.

More structurally significant is financial inclusion.

Over 1.7 billion adults worldwide do not have a bank account, but most people have smartphones. And wallet + stablecoin = simple bank account. You don't need KYC, you don't need a credit score, as long as you have a USDT address, you can receive payments, transfer money, and manage your finances. In countries like Nigeria, Venezuela, and Argentina, stablecoins are almost alternative currencies — they are an exchange rate anchor, a haven against inflation, and a choice for a grassroots currency order.

During the war in Ukraine, stablecoins became the "digital cash" for refugees, allowing donations, distribution, and purchases to be completed through Telegram Bot, all without relying on any government or bank.

From cross-border payments, remittances, and payroll disbursement, to Web3 on-chain protocol settlement, and then to AI agent smart settlement accounts, stablecoins are becoming the "digital container" of this world — it may not be the headline of financial revolution, but it is the "chassis" of the flow in the financial system.

Why is it "standards" that change the world, rather than "technology"?

Why are technological revolutions often "silent"? Why is it that what truly reshapes the world order is not the kind of eye-popping breakthrough innovations, but those "standards" that quietly creep into every system's cracks?

Because standards are not inventions; they are order.

Technology can be closed and localized, while standards must be shared and system-wide. It is not about leading in performance, but about being widely accepted.

Containers are not high-tech, but because they "can be used by everyone," they have become the foundation of global shipping. They are not the product of a single company, but rather the interface layer of an entire industry. More than 90% of international trade today still relies on standardized containers to complete logistics.

Stablecoins are also following a similar path: it is not a victory of a specific protocol, but a process in which a universal liquidity standard gradually gains mainstream recognition. It is not the end of transformation, but the starting point of a new order. This is the true power of standards – allowing distrustful individuals and systems to collaborate without the need for negotiation.

The underestimated present, the shaped future

We are standing at the "1956" of stablecoin history.

It has not yet become a world-class mainstream standard. Regulators in various countries are still weighing its legality; traditional finance still sees it as a "temporary tool"; and most users are still unclear whether they are using USDT, USDC, or DAI.

But the order has quietly changed.

Hong Kong has passed the "Stablecoin Regulation", and the United States is also advancing compliant issuance. Payment giants such as Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe have announced compatibility with stablecoins. In Africa, Chipper Cash and in Latin America, Bitso have become digital banks primarily using stablecoins.

From the crypto space to payments, from payments to applications, and from applications to the protocol layer—stablecoins are becoming the "universal interface of the global internet economy." The reason it has this potential is not because it is complex, but because it is simple enough, universal enough, and neutral enough.

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

We will ultimately understand that what changes the world is often not the most imaginative invention, but the most inconspicuous "standard."

The container did not change the power of the ship, but it changed the way goods are transported around the world. Containers did not eliminate ports, but made them more efficient.

Stablecoins will not replace banks, but they make "having banking functions" an open-source option. Stablecoins do not reshape the essence of money, but they may reshape the boundaries of clearing, collaboration, and financial coverage.

The future global clearing network may be woven from algorithms, smart contracts, and consensus mechanisms, and its underlying circulating unit could be a series of code-defined digital "containers."

It is quietly unnoticed, yet it moves the world.