Sam Bankman-Fried explains why UST crash was ‘predictable’

Sam Bankman-Fried, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of FTX crypto exchange, tweeted that the crash of Terra’s UST and LUNA was ‘predictable’, generating a Twitter thread that has since gone viral. He said:  

A good point someone brought up recently: ‘Stablecoin’ is used to mean multiple different things. Just as the outside view skeptics predicted, during a large market move a stablecoin blew out.  Just not the stablecoin they predicted. Which was predictable, if you knew the details. This isn’t a comment about good vs bad–it’s about how important it is to know the details! 

SBF’s take on algorithmic stablecoins before the crash

In a Bloomberg interview with Joe Weisenthal, co-host of the Odd Lots podcast, SBF was asked about his take on the rise of algorithmic, partially-backed stablecoins. Weisenthal inquired:

One of the most interesting phenomenon happening right now is the rise of Luna and UST. Luna has this Treasury Reserve consisting of a lot of Bitcoin, which seems a little dicey, but some people say any idea of an algorithmically-backed stablecoin is a perpetual motion machine – it’s only a matter of time before it fails. Do you believe there can be a truly decentralized stablecoin? What do you make of these projects?

SBF: 

I do have some sympathy to the perpetual motion machine crowd here. They can serve some useful purposes, but if you do zoom out, right, and you say, this is a stablecoin, backed by volatile assets, what’s gonna happen in a big market move. Right? Like, you know how this plays out.

The screenshot of this exchange, posted on Twitter, attracted all kinds of comments. Here is one seemingly reasonable suggestion:  

Has someone thought of minting a decentralized stablecoin backed by a basket of tokens tied to commodities and securities? If it were done right, it might be less volatile than a stablecoin backed by Bitcoin.

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Tether to move over 1 billion USDT assets from Tron to Ethereum and Avalanche

After Terra’s UST stablecoin meltdown, there seems to be a storm within the stablecoin space with a second stablecoin and one of the most popular stablecoin, Tether (USDT) also losing its dollar peg. Following the recent developments, Tether has announced via a tweet that it shall coordinate a chain swap to move its USDT assets from the Tron blockchain to Ethereum and Avalanche blockchains.

In the announcement, Tether says that it plans to move one billion USDT assets from Tron to Ethereum and 20 million USDT assets from Tron to Avalanche. This will however not affect the total supply of the USDT stablecoins.

The announcement has come at a time when there is heightened fear arising from the recent TerraUSD stablecoin meltdown that has taken Terra (LUNA) coin down with it. Today, the price of USDT has shown some price fluctuations that have caused the stablecoin to even slip below $0.99 on many crypto exchanges.

USDT is the most traded stablecoin and investors are worried when it starts showing signs of struggle.

USDT is not like algorithmic stablecoins such as UST

In an interview, Tether’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino assured traders that the USDT stablecoin is not similar to algorithmic stablecoins like UST. He said:

“Tether has a Strong, conservative, and liquid portfolio that consists of cash & cash equivalents.” This includes treasury bills, money market funds, and commercial paper holdings.

Tether’s portfolio includes treasury bills, commercial paper holdings, and money market funds.

Ardoino also pointed out that while some are scared of the current stables hiccup, some traders are utilizing the opportunity by for example purchasing USDT below $1 and exchanging it for above $1 on Bitfinex and Tether’s official website.

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