[Discussion Question] Strategic Reserve for the Steem blockchain?
These days, everyone's talking about "Strategic Bitcoin Reserves" or Sovereign Wealth Crypto Funds, so why don't we also talk about them here on the Steem blockchain?
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The idea is simple:
Strategic Bitcoin Reserve: Buy and hold BTC (or Wrapped BTC?) in order to enhance the value of an organization, or even a nation. Prominent examples include El Salvador, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the state of Texas (among others), and maybe even the United States.
Sovereign Wealth Crypto Fund: This is basically the same, but it includes a basket of cryptocurrencies, instead of just BTC.
Off-hand, I can imagine two conceivable benefits if we implemented a community-owned and managed fund like that here:
- Use cost averaging to increase the Steem ecosystem's value in similar fashion to what Strategy has demonstrated.
- Increase the value of SP as investors wrestle for control over the fund's purchasing decisions.
Therefore, the question is this: Should the Steem community make use of the Steem Proposal System (currently worth $4-5 million (~44-55 BTC)) in order to build a Bitcoin Reserve and/or Crypto Wealth Fund (i.e. maybe based on a basket of TRX and TRX-related tokens) as a community-owned strategic reserve for the Steem ecosystem?
Pixabay license from kalhh
If so, why? And how could it be accomplished?
Maybe the community could build upon the multi-key setup that was already created for token burning (before SBDs were delisted by upbit)? Or maybe the community could use the SPS to hire a reputable development firm to create the mechanism?
Finally, how would the community audit the mechanism to minimize the risk from vulnerabilities and exploits?
If not, why not?
Possible challenges: Risk of hacking; technical difficulty with making the purchases; regulatory risk; deviation from Steem's core vision; anything else?
Post your thoughts below!
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Thank you for your time and attention.
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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.
Pixabay license, source
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I would think that you generally wouldn't want a "strategic reserve" to be correlated with the kinds of problems you'd want to have a strategic reserve to deal with, and since the entire crypto market often moves together, having the chain own a bunch of crypto would probably not be great -- you wouldn't want to sell it in hard times because you probably wouldn't get much for it, and you wouldn't need to sell it in good times, so why did you buy it? There might be a better case for a reserve of stablecoins or fiat currency.
Also, it seems like the powers-that-be are already afflicted by "too good to use syndrome" with the SBDs in the DAO, I'd guess it would be even worse with a basket of other currencies.
0.00 SBD,
0.00 STEEM,
0.60 SP
The crypto market might move together in fits and starts, but in the long term there are clear winners and losers. I can remember when 1 STEEM was > 14,000 Satoshis - now it's floating around 160. If we'd had a bitcoin reserve five years ago, I guess that would be different.
You might be right about stablecoins, though. A big benefit from the "Crypto Fund" might be that bridges would be built between Steem and Tron (or other chains). Those bridges could then be used by other services, too. I have no idea how any of this would be implemented, but given steem-engine, and also that they were able to link TRX to Steem rewards for a while, I guess it must be possible.
Well, selling can't be impossible, but I would think it should require a really strong consensus ( maybe 2/3 or 3/4 of stake? ), so I'm fine with "too good to use syndrome" in this context. I'm not sure what prompts MicroStrategy to sell BTC sometimes, either, but the stakeholders would have to sort that out.
To me, the big challenge is that I don't know how you guarantee community control of tokens from other chains. I guess wrapping the tokens in a STEEM L2 token of some sort and controlling it with multikey would be the most likely solution... Or we go back to the Smart contract post from Dan. I never really understood the mechanics there, though (maybe 'cause I know nothing about "boost"?).
0.00 SBD,
0.01 STEEM,
0.01 SP
Update: Coincidentally, I just read this.
0.00 SBD,
0.04 STEEM,
0.04 SP