Coinscrum_markets, in partnership with Blockchain.com, is back with a bang on October 2nd in the run-up to The Trading Show Europe to introduce some truly pioneering thought leaders that have been instrumental in cementing the credibility of the crypto markets as they stand today.
When the original blockchain-based fiat-backed “stable coin”, Tether, was launched in 2014 it immediately addressed a real need within the crypto exchange & trading ecosystem whilst, at the same time, raising critical questions about the concept itself.
An “on-chain” representation of an “off-chain” asset is only as good as the underlying custodian and issuer of said representation.
The assumption always being that, ultimately, one could only ever trust a national Central Bank to issue these things if the inherent counterparty risk they carry is to be eliminated as far as our current system allows.
However, for all of the various accusation that followed Tether in its slip stream, even its recent (and supposedly) more transparent and trustworthy competitors have struggled to dent its dominance.
More recently still, we have seen announcements about; the upcoming release of the Facebook-led Libra iteration (based on a basket of currencies rather than one); a consortium of 16+ commercial banks launching their own interbank settlement version, Fnality; as well as the governor of the Bank of England, no less, suggesting that the concept should be something that Central Banks around the world explore in order to temper the supremacy of the US Dollar.
Throw into the mix the more exotic (and still-to-be stress-tested) experiments with “programmatically pegged” stable coins such the Maker DAO and the only conclusion that one can reach is that these things will most likely be around for some time.
After short presentations, Daniel Masters, founder of the world’s first regulated Bitcoin fund, Robert Sams, founder at Clearmatics – the company that led the design of the Fnality platform – and Sveinn Valfells, co-founder at Monerium – the first fiat-backed digital currency to obtain a pan-European e-money license – will continue to have their thoughts on the subject extracted during a panel discussion moderated by Garrick Hileman, Head of Research at Blockchain.com and one of the first Economists to begin commentating on Bitcoin during its formative years.
