Basecoin

[XrpAT]

3 Princeton graduates are bringing forth tgeur own Basecoin, that they claim will be less volatile and more stable. Anyone know more about this?

Cant find out any ICO information. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cryptocurrency-investment/princeton-graduates-crypto-currency-wins-backing-of-big-u-s-investors-idUSKBN1CI2YF?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=59e7737f04d3010a87e5c39c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

[XrpAT]

And apparently they have the backing of some US investors who seem to be heavyweight, though I confess I dont know much about them

[The Knight of Ahhrrgg]

 

It is intriguing, thank you for drawing my attention to that!

There's an interesting whitepaper here: http://www.getbasecoin.com/basecoin_whitepaper_0_99.pdf

(I'm still reading and trying to get everything, but basically the concept is like this):

By defenition, the blockchain supply would go up or down, on a continuous basis, depending on the PEG that is being used/programmed into the token (be it the USD, any other fiat currency, be it CPI, or be it even a bunch of goods). I suppose that this could / would be done country by country.

Let's think as a peg to USD , EUR, JPY etc. etc. first :

Effectively, that would create a fixed peg as long as the fiat currency is around. In other words, although that may seem stable at first sight, if you reckon that the fiat curriencies trade amoung each other, you'd in fact be replicating the fiat currency - into a crypto. Actually, that might be an interesting proposition for central banks. However: 1) you'd still be bearing the inflation arising from that fiat-peg (whatever it is) and  2) at some point in time fiat-currency-crosses might not be the "real deal" anymore, as the pegged-Basecoin-crypto would overtake the vast amount of transactions & in volume in trading. (That is literally Warpspeeds from where we are today, of course). Nonetheless: there is an inherent problem to this: at what point would crypto be dictating fiat? Or would one rather prefer to have fiat dictate crypto (despite whatever low volume/market manipulation would take place on the fiat markets? ) . That is philosophical in nature, I do understand, but when looking at the basics of a crypto currency, that needs to be done.

Such an inflationary peg would indeed be to the interest of central banks and  governments all around the globe, as they thrive on inflationary policies. To the holder of these coins, however, there's not a stabilitiy in the end in real terms, as the whitepaper suggests. Well - there is stability as we know it today, but still: that stability is quite inflationary! (Ask anyone older than 70 :-)

So let's think in terms of: pegging to a CPI, or to a basket of goods, next:

To the holder of these Basecoins, this would be good: the pruchasing power would get preserved. There are many underlying problems as to :
- what CPI would you peg to?
- are those CPI figures indeed trustworthy (Greece, Zimbabwe, even US) ?
- what goods should go into the basket of goods, just food etc. or... e.g. the purchase values for cars, houses as well - mean, median, +/-  2x standard deviation?
That will be a hard one to crunch in the first place. (Alternatively, many basecoins could be created  for many different purposes - e.g. if you are planning on buying a car, buy car-Baseoins, so your purchasing power doesn't diminish. Same for groceries, housing, health care). However, and more importantly, such a coin wouldn't get mass adoption from central banks and their governments anymore: our entire financial system has been based on inflation & debt. I'm not saying that is a good thing per se (although it did get us where we are today behind a computer), but it needs to be taken into account. Therefore, I'd suspect, that pegging any Basecoin to a fiat currency (see above) would still win the argument long term.

The entire concept (namely: a stable crypto currency for matter of REAL LIFE usage) is to be hailed in the first place. It is an intriguing concept, and challenging the mind - which I like. Also, let me add to that: currently the crypto-sphere is more about ultra-speculation by moonkiddies, than that it is actually solving people's / companies' problems, so I very much appreciate this endeavour. (This is also my reason to be totally supporting XRP  - all the way.)  

But whether Basecoin could be used on a large scale, that's another one.
I will need to give this much more additional thought, but again: thanks for making me aware of the concept!

 

 

[XrpAT]

Your grasp of this is way ahead of mine. I havent read the whole whitepaper yet. It was interesting since any crypto that atleast alludes to a real world usage is better than other flukes. Thanks for your input!