Stable Coin development - A small barometer of the health and evolution of Cryptocurrencies - 8 Stable Coins of late
Unofficial SC's, 1st Generation, 2nd Generation, 3rd Generation and... Institutional Generation Stable Coins
Stable Coins come and go - most of them go, but the industry is developing and maturing fast.
Watching the development of Stable Coins is a good way to track the evolution and maturing of Cryptocurrncies (VC's - Virtual Currencies) in general. They are a health and progress barometer of the Crypto world.
And we now are lucky enough to have a number of quite different types of Stable Coins.
Here are 8 current Stable Coins - 5 Official SC's (one promising institutionalized Stability) and 3 Stable Coins one could term 'Unofficial Stable Coins' (useful for hedging as they have had noticeably less volatility then the rest of the Coins in the market)
I hasten to say that this list does not include Tether due to the controversy surrounding Tether and the fact that Tether is arguably a first generation Stable Coin, and that we are now seeing 3rd Generation Stable Coins hitting the market.
*I personally don't think there is much harm in using Tether and its convenience for the time being but, there are serious concerns relating to Tethers threat to the market as a whole due to, if nothing else - its shear size, and, the fact that there is no substantial evidence of sound backing (encompassing all the meaning the word 'backing' may entail)
Lets start with the 3 unassuming, hidden Stable Coins, well, they are not quite stable but are rather noticeably less volatile than the rest of the market.
These coins will help if you are not wanting to utilize Traditional Official or unknown or unproven Stable Coins.
Ethereum Classic
Ethereum Classic has quietly being following the path of an even keel for the last year not exceeding a drop much over half of its value from the all time high in December / January.
If you need a break from the volatility of the markets - this is a reasonably easy and safe park.
Decred DAO (DAO - Decentralized Autonomous Organisation)
Decred has, too, seen a relatively mild volatility over the last year.
Because Decred is a Decentralized, Open Source and an Autonomous blockchain project with censorship resistance, smart contract enabled with cross chain atomic swaps support with a Blockchain age of now nearly 2.5 years, it is obvious that the developers behind Decred know what they are doing.
They are after all ex Bitcoin Core Developers!
This would give me sufficient faith in parking my precious crypto with this coin in times pointing to long downturns and times needing rest gaps.
Theta
Theta is not a well known VC (Virtual Currency) and is not a true true Blockchain or decentralized (yet at least)
The project is led by a team of quite ambitious developers who comprise of co-founders of SliverTV and are advised by none other than co-founder of YouYuybe - Steve Chen.
The Theta project boldly aims to make on-demand Video Content and VR decentralised and Blockchained, making content access cheaper and faster in the future - it has great potential.
Theta is a young Coin having only launched at the beginning of January 2018, this year, but its price has remained reasonably stable throughout the last 6 months even though everything else has gone down.
Theta will likely rise well with the tide when we see the Bull Market return, but for now I see a safe park should we see continued down motion of Bitcoin prices.
Here are 5 Promising and sophisticated Official Stable Coins worth looking at and watching.
TrueUSD by Trust Token project
TrueUSD or TUSD is regarded as a First Generation StableCoin as is Tether, declared so because they are Backed by a Fiat Currency reserve (or supposedly so - in the case of Tether )
First Generation Stable Coins simply use computer algorithms to peg the their currency to the US Dollar as best they can as it is not possible to have exact correlation 100% of the time in any circumstances with any asset pairing.
Now, nothing really backs the US Dollar either, so you could lightly excuse Tether for being sparse on proof of a full Basket of Fiat backing it up - but there is obviously a lot more muscle behind the US Dollar to keep it safe than there is behind Tether and Bitfinex.
What is reassuring about TUSD is that it has drawn expertise in from the likes of Google and Palantir and Stanford University. It is using WilmerHale and Arnold & Porter for legal representation and guidance, and its liquidity reporting is from Cohen&Company.
TUSD is, again a young project so it remains to be seen how it progresses.
Dai from Maker Dao
Maker is a decentralized autonomous Blockchain organization or DAO, residing on the Ethereum blockchain.
It is considered a 2nd Generation Stable Coin deemed so because it is backed by Crypto Assets such as Ethereum not Fiat currencies like the US Dollar. This has advantages this has advantages over using Fiat.
Dai launched the end of December 2017 so it is still a young project, but so far has held reasonable stability.
Dai is only able to be created and destroyed by by its users in a complicated method involving data feeds from external market factors and to reward and incentivise the Dai community to always strive to keep the Dai price as close to the price of the US Dollar as possible. The platforms system penalises divergence from the ultimate aim of the Maker / Dai program, which is to provide a Stable Coin.
Although more complicated technically, it allows easier correlation to the US Dollar.
The fact that Dai is decentralised makes for a safer utility then say Tether which is arguably not decentralised and wholly controlled by the Tether Limited.
USDX Protocol
The USDX Stable Coin is considered a 3rd Generation Stable Coin, 3rd Gen Coins use, with varying formulas, a sophisticated algorithmic construct involving more than one coin in their ecosystems, with each coin or token propping the other up while also allowing for one to perform the standard necessary cryptocurrency task of appreciation in value for the coin holders, which thus incentivises the particular community to make it work well.
Basis Stable Coin, for instance, uses 3 Tokens in it ecosystem and so, as Stable Coins evolve so they become more and more complicated and sophisticated.
Havven
Havven is an Australian start up and also finds itself in the 3rd Gen category of Stable Coins using a dual Token System.
and last but not least
USDC by Circle
Circle is a fairly new company backed by Goldman Sachs and has just completed the purchase of Poloniex Crypto Exchange, but not as new as the other organisations discussed here.
Circle's USDC is strange, it is backed by US Dollars like a 1st Generation Stable Coin from a Crypto startup.
But Circle has bounds in the Legacy Fintech and Financial realm having started off a Fiat payments and transfers provider not significantly un similar to PayPal, in October 2013.
This notion is reinforced by the fact that Circle is backed by Goldman Sachs and had an unofficial decree by the SEC (Securities and Exchanges Commission in the US) that should they make Poloniex fully compliant KYC AML, Circle could see no enforcement action against it.
Circle, was the first to receive the British Government approved Virtual Currency License and the first to receive **the much coveted New York BitLicense.
I, thus call this Stable Coin the ... 'the Establishment' Generation Stable Coin.
It, above all others, my hold the safest park of them all, for traditional mainstream and institutional investors, as it aims to institutionalize this corner of the digital assets market.
And seams to have some very good 'friends in the right places'
Circle, also having financial backing from some serious high profile VC (Venture Capital) and other investors or and partners such as Bitmain, who produce the lions share of ASIC mining hardware for Bitcoin Mining.
It makes Circle an oddity, as, on one hand they have the auspices of the Legacy Financial Elitism and on the other they they have backing from Bitmain - who are Bitcoin arguably, if only the mining side of Bitcoin.
Does this mean we are now augmenting Mass Adoption, where we see Legacy Fintech and Finmech merging with the Libertarian Cryptocurrency movement?
..quite likely!
Yours Equerrilily
Ptychadina Wealth
*Please be aware - I currently own none of the coins mentioned in this post apart from Bitcoin.
references: among others
https://www.cryptocrunch.io/usdc-a-stable-coin/
https://cryptovest.com/news/true-usd-whats-good-to-know-about-the-new-fixed-price-token-project/
https://medium.com/@kingsleyadvani/the-top-6-stable-coins-in-crypto-e6f53e9b03be
https://www.finder.com.au/third-generation-stablecoin-basis-gets-133-million-in-backing
https://bitcoinist.com/goldman-sachs-circle-poloniex-now-what/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_(company)
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