A stablecoin fairytale
Once upon a time, there was a race of giants who controlled just about everything in Fairytaleland. They did this through something called money, which was actually just pieces of paper with pictures printed on it, but the giants – who were called The Bankers – convinced everyone that money was a good thing.
Your most comprehensive guide to stablecoins
The term stablecoin refers to any cryptocurrency coin or token pegged to an asset with a relatively stable price, such as fiat currencies or gold. A stablecoin can be under control of a central entity, such as Tether (USDT), or a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), such as Dai, a stablecoin which is issued on the Ethereum network. Nubits is another stablecoin which is partly controlled by a DAO, but is also under control by a central authority, representing a hybrid issuance model.
Subjecting stablecoins to the duck test
Stablecoins are backed by something, right? There’s some asset which stands behind them and makes them akin to a national currency, which is backed by gold bars in a vault somewhere, right?
What does ‘stable’ mean?
Part of the problem with crypto is that it is unrelated to anything ‘in the real world.’ Tokenized offerings are a brilliant way of raising funds, and – if successful – their tokens can then be used by investors within the ecosystem of the ICO. Outside of that they can be traded on the exchanges for other coins, but the whole market is still prone to alarming shifts in value.
How to avoid turning our lives into the next Black Mirror episode
In 2016, a photo of Mark Zuckerberg covering his laptop’s camera with tape went viral and left us all wondering if we should be as paranoid and do the same. More interestingly, though, is that today we are trying to protect ourselves from Facebook.
Tech journalists and responsibility
Due diligence isn’t just in the hands of would-be ICO investors. It falls on all of us. Journalists. ICO raters. Crypto experts. Bloggers. We all have a responsibility to research what we’re talking about, to dig deeper when something doesn’t seem to be right, and to call-out the lies, scams, and corruption that we see.
Not the usual offerings
Now I must stress that what follows comes from a random trawl, but I think it proves that the ‘The Man’ isn’t in control of everything. And remember, none of these picks are advice to invest!
Fit for purpose
Look at most ICOs, and you’ll see that blockchain and smart contracts are always somewhere in the marketingspeak. Blockchain is the magic JuJu which has to be sprinkled around the offering to ensure uptake, apparently.
The road more traveled
It seems that schisms will always happen, and now we have the schism which occurred at block 478,559, when there was a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain, and nodes running previous versions ceased to be accepted by the newest version. Welcome to the world, Bitcoin Cash!
How fees are destroying crypto onboarding
There is a great buzz around cryptocurrencies, which is causing more and more individuals to explore this new industry with the hopes of getting involved in some way. Yet, with fees so high for making cryptocurrency purchases it is no wonder the industry as a whole is still struggling with onboarding new cryptocurrency investors and users.
