Stablecoins: what, why, how. Hands on with MakerDAO, MKR, DAI

Native cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin or ether, are volatile af.

"Stablecoins" are derivative cryptocurrencies, typically built on top of existing native blockchains, which attempt to bring some stability (in terms of USD price on the open market) to a crypto token.

Examples include:

• Tether ($USDT), built on Bitcoin, backed by USD in a bank account
• Gemini Dollar ($GUSD), built on Ethereum, backed by USD in a bank account
• USD Coin ($USDC), built on Ethereum, backed by USD in a bank account
• True USD ($TUSD), built on Ethereum, backed by USD in a bank account
• MakerDAO's DAI ($DAI), built on Ethereum, backed by ETH in smart contracts

One of these things is fundamentally not like the other.

This meetup will involve a brief explanation of what a stablecoin attempts to do, why they're valuable in the ecosystem, and the mechanics of how they work.

The majority of the "how" will be focused on MakerDAO's DAI stablecoin, the world's first decentralized stablecoin backed by ETH.

We'll get hands-on and go through the fully open and transparent process of creating a Proxy contract, creating a Collateralized Debt Position, wrapping ETH to WETH, converting WETH to PETH, locking PETH into the CDP, generating DAI from that CDP, and transferring the DAI to our control.

This is the future of banking.