Motion: Algo and fractional stablecoins are flawed (Bennett Tomlin vs. Sam Kazemian)

Guests:

Bennett Tomlin (twitter.com/bennetttomlin)
Sam Kazemian (twitter.com/samkazemian)

Host:

Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)

Today’s motion is “Algo and fraction stablecoins are flawed.”

A good stablecoin can sustainably hold its peg, and recover quickly from a premium or discount. This is a basic requirement for stablecoins. 

An obvious design is the bank coin model, where coins are backed 1-to-1 by fiat. But this creates a single point of failure and incurs compliance overhead. 

Hence MakerDAO, which made a smart contract driven stablecoin, and is de-coupled from the banking system. But it requires over-collateralization. 

So new designs popped up and tried to make the next capital-efficient stablecoin to allow under-collateralization, with innovative collateral adjustment mechanisms. We call these algorithmic and fractional stablecoins. 

Historically, most of these coins failed to hold their pegs. Is there a fundamental problem? Or can these challenges be overcome?

The two debaters today include the founder of an algo/fractional stablecoin that has been holding its peg relatively well since launch, that is about half a year, as well as a well-known critic of various stablecoins.

If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.

Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

• Dragonfly research on FRAX stablecoin: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/a-visual-explanation-of-frax-bcce72c1730f
• Bennett Tomlin article on FEI stablecoin: https://bennettftomlin.substack.com/p/fei-protocol-analysis-last-reminder
• Frax stablecoin: https://frax.finance/
• Bennett Tomlin blog (mostly crypto): https://bennettftomlin.substack.com/
• Maker DAO's Black Thursday: https://medium.com/@whiterabbit_hq/black-thursday-for-makerdao-8-32-million-was-liquidated-for-0-dai-36b83cac56b6

Guest bios:

Bennett Tomlin regularly publishes articles about fraud in the crypto space via his blog. His dayjob is data scientist and fraud investigator in the pharmacy benefits area.

Sam Kazemian is cofounder and CEO of Frax Finance, a stablecoin project that brands itself as the world's first "fractional-algorithmic" stablecoin. Sam also started Everipedia, the first decentralized online encyclopedia on the blockchain.