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Some great alternatives Tether and Bitfinex are MakerDAO and Uniswap. The first one offers a decentralised & transparent stable-coin called DAI. The second one

Some great alternatives Tether and Bitfinex are MakerDAO and Uniswap. The first one offers a decentralised & transparent stable-coin called DAI. The second one is a decentralized exchange that is also 100% transparent. These are transparent because they're running as programs on top of of a blockchain (Ethereum). Each and every state change is recorded and the systems can be audited in real-time. The Maker DAI stablecoin currency is backed by collateral (Ether), and it's currently overcollateralized by about 350%. The system has been remarkably stable, even in the face of the bear market, which resulted on some crazy swings in the price of Ether. DAI also has a few fiat on-ramps, including Coinbase and Kraken. You can also mint DAI yourself - there's a tutorial on Coinbase where they give you $20 DAI for free, https://www.coinbase.com/earn https://www.coinbase.com/earn What's more is that since these systems are essentially programs (they can be used and called by other programs as "library" ) which means that they can be used as lego bricks to build new things. Some examples are "Pool Together - https://www.pooltogether.us" https://www.pooltogether.us", which is a no-loss lottery system. It combines MakerDao's DAI coin and a decentralized lending system called "Compound". Please be mindful that all the above projects are still considered experiments and cutting-edge stuff. It will probably still take a few years to mature - however, a lot of new opportunities seem to be opening up in this area.

ShorsHammer 7y ago
Are you saying Tether isn't run on a blockchain? Because it most certainly is. The SEC crypto tsar recently had quite negative comments about MakerDAO at SWSX, as in they may be in breach of securities law. Something to note. The decentralized nature still makes it far less riskier to the end consumer.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Well the Tether transactions are run on a centralized blockchain, but the underlying value of Tether is based entirely on trust in Bitfinex backing it with actual dollars. As for Maker, I really don't know how the SEC would begin to shut it down if it wanted to. It's entirely smart contract driven and it's live on the Ethereum blockchain, which is truly decentralized. Surely we need to update securities law for the 21st century as I'm not sure the Howey test had blockchain era in mind.
  - grubles 7y ago
    Maker is run on a centralized blockchain. Ethereum is pretty admittedly centralized on the Infura node-as-a-service platform, which in of itself is hosted on AWS. https://www.coindesk.com/the-race-is-on-to-replace-ethereums-most-centralized-layer https://www.coindesk.com/the-race-is-on-to-replace-ethereums...
    - splintercell 7y ago
      If Infura was compromised tomorrow, it could cause a bunch of damage to Ethereum ecosystem, it wouldn't even remotely be structural. You act like Infura owns 50% of the mining power. It's just one aspect of Ethereum layers which is dominated by Infura. But if you keep creating these arbitrarily created measures, you can just as easily say "Bitcoin is centralized because bitcoin domain names and subreddits are owned by a single entity" (and this single entity managed to dominate the block size debate). If Chinese firewall goes up tomorrow, bitcoin would suffer a big damage. If Congress passes FATCA/FBAR reporting regulations for crypto, sanctions on China, bitcoin would suffer a big damage. But the idea is that none of these things would kill Bitcoin, and that's the main thing. You're calling Ethereum a 'centralized blockchain' because you're trying to cognitively justify against the vastly superior feature set of a competing blockchain. Ethereum fanboys do the same when they've to argue against scalability of TRON/EOS etc or other chains.
      - grubles 7y ago
        Controlling node consensus is the most important "layer". Nodes enforce protocol rules. If most "dapps" are using Infura, then Infura can easily force changes upon not only the dapps themselves but the entire network. Ethereum's engineering decisions have absolutely led to this, as well. Arbitrary "dapps" do not need a blockchain. Having all of this unnecessary data "on the blockchain" makes it bloated and impossible to validate, leading to entities like Infura.
  - ShorsHammer 7y ago
    Can't speak for the centralisation of Omni, you have any more info on that? Know little about them, it's a word thrown around quite readily in the cryptoworld for various reasons. They present themselves as decentralised and were in the first wave of layer 2 cryptocurrencies. Tether tx's are anchored into the bitcoin blockchain somewhere along the line. RE: Maker, certainly agree, just stating the situation. There's no chance of laws being able to keep up, it's a game of asking for forgiveness later for most. If something blew up quick enough and got mainstream adaption the law would bend for it (ie. Uber, AirBnb). https://decrypt.co/5940/secs-crypto-czar-stablecoins-might-be-violating-securities-laws https://decrypt.co/5940/secs-crypto-czar-stablecoins-might-b...
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  Which securities law?

ShorsHammer 7y ago

Are you saying Tether isn't run on a blockchain? Because it most certainly is. The SEC crypto tsar recently had quite negative comments about MakerDAO at SWSX, as in they may be in breach of securities law. Something to note. The decentralized nature still makes it far less riskier to the end consumer.

chrisco255 7y ago
Well the Tether transactions are run on a centralized blockchain, but the underlying value of Tether is based entirely on trust in Bitfinex backing it with actual dollars. As for Maker, I really don't know how the SEC would begin to shut it down if it wanted to. It's entirely smart contract driven and it's live on the Ethereum blockchain, which is truly decentralized. Surely we need to update securities law for the 21st century as I'm not sure the Howey test had blockchain era in mind.
- grubles 7y ago
  Maker is run on a centralized blockchain. Ethereum is pretty admittedly centralized on the Infura node-as-a-service platform, which in of itself is hosted on AWS. https://www.coindesk.com/the-race-is-on-to-replace-ethereums-most-centralized-layer https://www.coindesk.com/the-race-is-on-to-replace-ethereums...
  - splintercell 7y ago
    If Infura was compromised tomorrow, it could cause a bunch of damage to Ethereum ecosystem, it wouldn't even remotely be structural. You act like Infura owns 50% of the mining power. It's just one aspect of Ethereum layers which is dominated by Infura. But if you keep creating these arbitrarily created measures, you can just as easily say "Bitcoin is centralized because bitcoin domain names and subreddits are owned by a single entity" (and this single entity managed to dominate the block size debate). If Chinese firewall goes up tomorrow, bitcoin would suffer a big damage. If Congress passes FATCA/FBAR reporting regulations for crypto, sanctions on China, bitcoin would suffer a big damage. But the idea is that none of these things would kill Bitcoin, and that's the main thing. You're calling Ethereum a 'centralized blockchain' because you're trying to cognitively justify against the vastly superior feature set of a competing blockchain. Ethereum fanboys do the same when they've to argue against scalability of TRON/EOS etc or other chains.
    - grubles 7y ago
      Controlling node consensus is the most important "layer". Nodes enforce protocol rules. If most "dapps" are using Infura, then Infura can easily force changes upon not only the dapps themselves but the entire network. Ethereum's engineering decisions have absolutely led to this, as well. Arbitrary "dapps" do not need a blockchain. Having all of this unnecessary data "on the blockchain" makes it bloated and impossible to validate, leading to entities like Infura.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  Can't speak for the centralisation of Omni, you have any more info on that? Know little about them, it's a word thrown around quite readily in the cryptoworld for various reasons. They present themselves as decentralised and were in the first wave of layer 2 cryptocurrencies. Tether tx's are anchored into the bitcoin blockchain somewhere along the line. RE: Maker, certainly agree, just stating the situation. There's no chance of laws being able to keep up, it's a game of asking for forgiveness later for most. If something blew up quick enough and got mainstream adaption the law would bend for it (ie. Uber, AirBnb). https://decrypt.co/5940/secs-crypto-czar-stablecoins-might-be-violating-securities-laws https://decrypt.co/5940/secs-crypto-czar-stablecoins-might-b...
AlexCoventry 7y ago
Which securities law?