Pre-locking stats to a provider is similar to gift cards, but it's on-demand and private. 🧡

You talk about dollars being self-custodied FIAT, but this is not correct. Dollars are promissory notes, which you can clearly see on old bills that declare their worth in silver. A dollar bill is very much analogous to a token from an ecash mint, it represents an amount of money (gold or silver) allegedly held by the custodian (the US Treasury). You self-custody USD not by holding dollar bills but by holding constitutional silver coins.