From Containers to Stablecoins: Standards Change the World

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

There was no welcoming crowd and no media coverage. But historians later looked back and deemed the significance of this day to be 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 oceans, but it has completely reorganized the structure of global supply chains.

Decades later, in a distant digital world, another "standard" is quietly rising. Its goal is 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 achieve a status similar to that of a "container," but it already possesses all the conditions of a great invention: misunderstood, resisted, underestimated—yet changing the world.

A World Changed by a Tin Box

The global shipping in 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, full of misunderstandings, delays, and costs.

At that time, loading a ship required hundreds of dockworkers spending a full three days or even longer to load bags and boxes of goods onto the ship. Unloading was even more of a nightmare: goods were often misplaced, dropped, or even stolen. Each time goods were transferred at the port, it meant unpacking and reloading, with a damage rate of over 8%, and the labor costs were astonishingly high.

The launch of "Ideal X" involved only 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 transport, the loading and unloading costs plummeted from $5.86 per ton to $0.16, a reduction of over 97%. Shipping time was also compressed from several weeks to several days. Port operation time was reduced from 72 hours to under 8 hours, with turnover rates improving by more than 8 times.

The changes in employment structure were even more dramatic. The New York port used 1.4 million man-days of labor in 1963, which decreased to 127,000 man-days by 1975, a reduction of 91%. An entire industry was redefined.

People are no longer the protagonists; standards have become the order.

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

Researchers such as Bernhofen have estimated that containerization has led to a 790% increase in bilateral trade among participating countries, while the growth rate of 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, the rise of manufacturing in Southeast Asia, 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 a period of twenty years.

Misunderstood Stablecoins: The "Containers" of the Digital World

Stablecoins were initially regarded as "having 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, evades regulation, and is 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 to decentralize monetary power, then stablecoins bring standardization and efficiency optimization to transaction processes. Stablecoins do not have macro governance goals like central bank digital currencies, nor do they explore the boundaries of risk and return like DeFi. They do one thing: enable "stable money" to flow like code.

This matter has exceeded expectations.

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

The advantages of stablecoins lie not in the value of the coins themselves, but in their on-chain liquidity. They facilitate settlement scenarios across chains, countries, and accounts, enabling a fruit exporter in Uganda to receive payments within 5 minutes, rather than waiting 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, which is a significant improvement in cost and efficiency compared to the traditional SWIFT average fee of 6.6% and a settlement period of 3-7 days.

And more structurally significant is financial inclusion.

Over 1.7 billion adults worldwide do not have a bank account, but most people have a smartphone. And wallet + stablecoin = easy 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 funds, and invest. In countries like Nigeria, Venezuela, and Argentina, stablecoins are almost alternative currencies — they are the exchange rate anchor, a safe haven against inflation, and a choice for a grassroots currency order.

During the war in Ukraine, stablecoins became the "digital cash" for refugees, enabling fundraising, distribution, and procurement via Telegram Bot, all without relying on any government or bank.

From cross-border payments, remittances, and salary disbursements, to Web3 on-chain protocol settlement, and then to AI agent intelligent settlement accounts, stablecoins are becoming the "digital containers" of this world - they may not be the headlines of the financial revolution, but they are the "chassis" of the financial system's circulation.

Why is it the "standard" that changes the world, rather than the "technology"

Why are technological revolutions often "silent"? Why is it not the eye-catching breakthrough innovations that truly reshape the world order, but rather those "standards" that quietly seep into every crevice of the system?

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 are "accessible to 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. Over 90% of international trade today still relies on standardized containers to complete logistics.

Stablecoins are also following a similar path: it is not the victory of a certain protocol, but a process where 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 untrusting individuals and systems to collaborate without the need for negotiation.

The Undervalued Present, The Shaped Future

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

It has not yet become a world-class mainstream standard. Regulatory authorities in various countries are still weighing its legitimacy; traditional finance still views 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 like 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 cryptocurrency sector to payment, from payment to application, and from application to 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 eventually understand that it is often not the most imaginative invention that changes the world, but rather the least noticeable "standard."

The container did not change the power of ships, but it changed the way goods are transported around the world. The container did not eliminate ports, but it 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 settlement network may be woven from algorithms, smart contracts, and consensus mechanisms, and its underlying circulation unit could be individually defined digital "containers".

It is unknown, yet it pries open the world.