I can see using stable coins as a trading pair to purchase alts on a dex but I don't understand holding stable coins for longer periods of time like weeks, months or years as a store of value; to me this feels way too risky. What am I missing?
You must be right with your approach on stablecoins as I am also having similar thought on currently available all stablecoins. It means that at any time these stablecoins may face any problem from governments hence not trusting them will always help anyone to remain safer.
For P2P trading, I am currently I make use of USDT still I do not hold them for hours. Even sometimes, if my orders remain unpicked then the amount I will be holding in stablecoins would be less than $20 only.
Might be different if you could do a lot of your every-day normal shopping with stable coins but right now you can't.
Yeah, I am seeing even my favorite gift-card providers are not accepting stable as of now. Hence, it would take years to use stablecoins for everyday spending.