I am working on a series of articles, and have been studying and reading my way around the topic for several months now, collecting more resources and fleshing out my knowledge.
Sam Kazemian of Frax Finance believes stablecoins will become intrinsic to all defi protocols. He considers himself a stablecoin maximalist. This idea runs alongside the core idea of these articles.
Considering what has happened recently with USDC, I think this topic should be explored from a bigger-picture perspective (not just by me but by everyone). The need for a self-contained defi currency is apparent (Do Kwon was right lol), currently, the majority of stablecoins are too heavily dependent on the traditional finance system.
The topic is...
Reserve currencies. Money.
What is money and how does it work, how do people want it to work?
How does the current reserve system work, how has it worked in the past? (Hence my recent obsession with Gold
How could crypto be a reserve currency, how could it best be programmed to this end? More tokenomics.
Cryptocurrencies that already have the desired characteristics to be ubiquitous money, and what is missing from the stablecoin/reserve asset landscape.
I'm hoping I will come to some useful conclusions, either way, I hope it will be educational for myself and anyone that reads it.
The series of articles will be...
These are the titles I have so far. A series of 7 (I guess) core articles, a few of which are partially or almost fully written:
- Gold vs Bitcoin and tokenized commodities/synthetics – completed as a soft introduction.
- The historical failures of the gold-backed dollar and peg defense-based currencies.
- A review of the accepted components of money as well as less conventional views on its form – to lay the groundwork for different conceptual frameworks.
- Tokenomicsssssss. Incentivizing sensible behaviour.
- Eurodollar vs the petrodollar and characteristics of a reserve currency.
- Identify issues/events and mechanisms of the current system that led to current reserve currency issues and eventually lay the groundwork for how these could be prevented with a pre-programmed currency.
- Reserve currency thesis (one, many or none? Dollars forever?), then relate this to current defi developments - which defi protocols and products are already building this framework and (hopefully be able to) speculate on what is missing.
The goal is not to be groundbreaking but to carefully examine what already exists with the hopes of taking small, purposeful steps forwards.
I may not release them in this exact order.
Timeline...
Hoping to be done with these main articles in a few months. Will release them as I finish them.
Will try to stay focused but I will release some smaller articles alongside them. My brain enjoys distractions lol.
feedback or other topics/protocols/ideas you think I should cover? Looking for more unorthodox perspectives on these topics to make it more interesting as a study. Please leave your suggestions in the comments and feel free to comment with feedback or advice along the way.
