April 22, 2022    /    Unchained Daily    /    Laura Shin
Daily BitsÂ
-
Investors realized $162 billion in crypto gains during 2021.
-
Lido now accounts for over 29% of Ethereum 2.0 staking.
-
a16z launched a crypto research and coding unit.
-
BitRiverâs CEO called the US sanctions on the mining firm âunfair.â
-
A Compound governance proposal to end liquidity mining failed to pass.
-
Aave users on Avalanche can now claim rewards in AVAX.
-
Near largest DeFi protocol launched a token last night.
- The OCC found that Anchorage Digital failed to maintain proper AML rules.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
-
Fidelity opened up a branch in the metaverse where users can learn about ETF investing.
-
Google has partnered with Aptos Labs, the developer behind the Aptos layer 1 blockchain, to offer cloud support.
-
Australia unveiled a set of crypto policy expectations.
-
US House Democrats are calling for increased scrutiny on crypto miningâs environmental impact.
- The Bahamas is set to allow citizens to pay taxes with digital assets.
The $$$ Corner…
-
Coinbase is in discussions with BtcTurk over a $3.2 billion acquisition of the Turkish exchange.
-
Bitcoin mining company Crusoe Energy Systems raised$505 million in a Series C.
-
Rario, an NFT platform, announced a $120 million funding round.
-
Limewire raised $10.4 million in a private token sale.
- Scroll, an Ethereum scaling project, raised $30 million.
What Do You Meme?
What’s Poppin’?
TRX Is Popping
Yesterday, Tron founder Justin Sun unveiled plans to launch USDD, an algorithmic stablecoin, on Tron in May.
USDD will be pegged to the dollar and will use TRX, Tron’s native governance and gas token, to help maintain the peg. For example, when USDDâs price drops below $1, market participants can send 1 USDD to the system and receive $1 worth of TRX. When USDD is worth more than $1, users can send $1 in TRX in return for 1 USDD.
Calling it the âStablecoin 3.0 era,â Tron will pool all of its resources together to create and control USDD via the Tron DAO. In addition to keeping the USDD peg, Tron DAO will also be charged with providing custody of $10 billion worth of âhighly liquid assetsâ to act as a reserve system for USDD. While Sun did not disclose which assets would be used, he described them as coming from âinitiators of the blockchain industry.â
If this sounds familiar, thatâs because, well, it is almost the same gameplan that Terra has implemented. The mechanism for keeping USDD pegged to the dollar via TRX is exactly how UST keeps its peg via LUNA. Furthermore, the decision to back USDD with a reserve of cryptocurrencies comes just a few months after Terra decided to do the same thing (Terra has already purchased more than $1 billion in BTC). Furthermore, Sun says that Tron will offer a 30% interest rate for users who stake to the system â which is more than 10% higher than what Terraâs Anchor Protocol currently provides.
In response to Sunâs announcement, Terra co-founder Do Kwon appeared unsurprised that another L1 smart contract platform would make a similar move to Terra. âDecentralized economies deserve decentralized money – every blockchain will run on deck. stables soon,â he wrote. Tron is not the only L1 to make such a move, as Near Protocol confirmed plans for an algorithmic stablecoin, USN, in early April.
TRX is up 15% in the hours after the news broke â the highest climber among top 100 crypto assets by nearly 2x.
That being said, not all the reaction was positive for algorithmic stablecoins. For example, Compound founder Robert Leshner wrote on Twitter, âI did NOT have âevery L1 becomes an algostableâ on my 2022 bingo card, but alas, here we goâŚReduced to its barest economics, this creates a non-useful âstakingâ yield for the native asset, with an extra layer of obfuscation.â
Nic Carter, the co-founder of Coin Metrics and general partner at Castle Island Ventures, was even more vociferous in expressing his opinion that algorithmic stablecoins will negatively impact the crypto industry. âOf all the bad ideas the crypto industry has come up with algo stables are among the worst,â he tweeted. âWhen these things inevitably fail, regulators will use the failure as a stick to bash the rest of the industry with, most likely causing reprisals against useful and functional stablecoins.â
Recommended Reads
-
Fidelityâs Jurrien Timmer on boring Bitcoin:
-
Cobie on the death of staking:
-
DeFi Edge on Near Protocol (disclosure: the Near Foundation is a previous sponsor of Unchained):
On The Pod…
The Chopping Block: How to Improve DeFi and Cross-Chain Bridge Security
Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. On this episode, Laura Shin, the host of Unchained and author of The Cryptopians, also joined the conversation. Show topics:
-
how people have responded to The Cryptopians
-
why traditional publishers were reticent to publish the story revealing the alleged DAO attackerâs identity
-
what lessons can be learned from North Koreaâs alleged involvement in the Ronin bridge exploit
-
what zero-knowledge proofs work and how a miscalculation in a whitepaper almost caused major issues in the crypto world this week
-
how math proofs and reporting specifications work in the crypto space
-
why security engineers, like samczsun, are so hard to come by
-
how an attacker was able to steal ~$80 million from Beanstalk in a governance attack
-
@hosseeb vs. @haseeb
-
the difference between being in crypto and covering it as a journalist â and why Laura sees herself as more a ârefereeâ than a participant in the crypto space
-
whether DeFi hackers can actually cash out of their positions
-
why Tarun is worried about Ethereumâs security in the wake of the merge being delayed even further
-
what staking derivatives are, and how tradfi companies are using Lido to lever up
-
why traditional funds getting into crypto has Tarun worried about Anchor
-
why the guys think Cosmos is more popular than Polkadot
Book Update
My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!
You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians
The post Do Kwon đ¤ Justin Sun appeared first on Unchained Podcast.
- "
- $1 billion
- $3
- 100
- 2021
- 2022
- About
- acquisition
- Act
- addition
- ALGO
- algorithmic
- All
- already
- AML
- among
- Announcement
- Another
- April
- asset
- Assets
- Avalanche
- being
- Billion
- Bitcoin
- Block
- blockchain
- blockchain industry
- BRIDGE
- BTC
- Cash
- caused
- ceo
- charged
- Cloud
- Co-founder
- Coding
- Coin
- coin metrics
- come
- coming
- Companies
- company
- Compound
- contract
- control
- Conversation
- Cosmos
- create
- creates
- Cross-Chain
- crypto
- Crypto Industry
- cryptocurrencies
- cryptocurrency
- Currently
- Custody
- DAO
- decentralized
- DeFi
- Democrats
- Derivatives
- described
- Developer
- DID
- digital
- Digital Asset
- Digital Assets
- Dollar
- Early
- Economics
- Edge
- energy
- Engineers
- environmental
- ETF
- ethereum
- Ethereum 2.0
- ethereum scaling
- example
- exchange
- expectations
- Failure
- Firm
- First
- found
- Foundation
- founder
- functional
- funding
- funds
- GAS
- General
- getting
- governance
- hackers
- height
- help
- here
- higher
- House
- How
- How To
- HTTPS
- ICO
- Impact
- implemented
- improve
- increased
- industry
- interest
- investing
- issues
- IT
- joined
- journalist
- Justin Sun
- keeping
- Labs
- largest
- latest
- Latest News
- launch
- LEARN
- learned
- likely
- Liquid
- Liquidity
- maintain
- major
- Making
- mark
- Market
- math
- meme
- Metaverse
- Metrics
- million
- Mining
- money
- months
- more
- most
- move
- Near
- news
- NFT
- North
- offer
- Opinion
- participants
- partner
- Pay
- People
- plans
- platform
- policy
- pool
- Popular
- positive
- presentation
- price
- private
- project
- proposal
- protocol
- provides
- providing
- publish
- publishers
- purchase
- purchased
- reaction
- receive
- Regulators
- research
- Resources
- response
- REST
- Rewards
- ROBERT
- RONIN
- round
- rules
- Run
- Said
- sale
- Sanctions
- scaling
- security
- sees
- Series
- set
- similar
- smart
- smart contract
- So
- sponsor
- stablecoin
- Stablecoins
- stake
- Staking
- support
- system
- Systems
- Taxes
- Terra
- together
- token
- top
- Topics
- traditional
- TRON
- TRX
- us
- use
- users
- Ventures
- W
- What
- while
- Whitepaper
- WHO
- Work
- world
- worth
- would
- Yield
- zero-knowledge proofs