My Submission into the Ampleforth Contest:
When PUBLISH0X announced the new tipping token would be Ampleforth, I was like "cool, okay just another coin I don't know anything about". And it stayed that way for a little while. I then saw a comment on an article referring to Ampleforth's rebase. I had no idea what a "rebase" was and wanted to dive into that and figure out what the coin was all about. In this guide I wanted to explain to anyone who doesn't know what Ampleforth is. But I wanted it explained to you how I wish it was explained to me in the beginning.
There are a few statements that explain Ampleforth:
1) Ampleforth is like DAI, in that it is based on the US dollar and will always be around $1 USD in value.
2) The total amount of Ampleforth you have in a day may change. But the percentage of Ampleforth you own to the total will not change. (This is called rebase).
3) Is was built to be better than Bitcoin and Dai.
3a) It is better than Bitcoin because with it's rebase it is impervious to supply/demand shock.
3b) It is better than Dai because it will be a reserve collateral in 'decentralized' banks which Dai can never be.
It's that simple. I don't see people making a killing with Ampleforth like you can with other coins like Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc. It is also a better token to invest in than say Dai because Dai is great but has limited use cases and over time people will need Ampleforth more than Dai.
You may have noticed that when Bitcoin price increases like it has recently then a TON of other tokens rise with it. And at the same time a lot of other tokens fall when Bitcoin rises. And the opposite is true. Ampleforth was designed in part to be completely separate from that volatility. I always thought of Dai as the standard of the US dollar in the crypto space. Now after learning about Ampleforth, it is what I associate with the US Dollar in the crypto space. Maybe one day the US Dollar will be meaningless but for now it's incredibly important.
My personal opinion though is that all the coins (like DAI) that are based directly on any physical 'dollar' will cease to be relevant in the years to come. I mean think about it guys, we are all investing in the crypto space because we believe crypto assets can replace physical money that is tied to government banks. So what we want is digital currency that has zero ties to physical money. When that happens and we are all using cryptocurrency what use is there for DAI? Why do I care that a token is backed by the US Dollar? I don't!
But Ampleforth takes it a step beyond. Ampleforth isn't tied to the US Dollar it is just based off the value of it. So one day when the US dollar is non existent it won't effect Ampleforth but it would effect Dai. And then Ampleforth can be the standard "Dollar" for the whole world to base other crypto assets of off. I think that point makes it one of the most important assets to have in your collection.
Also fun fact when Googling Ampleforth.. There is a College in England called Ampleforth which is located in the village of Ampleforth!
