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Stablecoin
A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency where the value of the digital asset is supposed to be pegged to a reference asset, which is either fiat money, exchange-traded commodities (such as precious metals or industrial metals), or another cryptocurrency. In theory, 1:1 backing by a reference asset could make a stablecoin value track the value of the peg and not be subject to the radical changes in value common in the market for many digital assets. In practice, stablecoin issuers have yet to be proven to maintain adequate reserves to support a stable value, and there have been a number of failures with investors losing the entirety of the (fiat currency) value of their holdings. Background Stablecoins have several purported purposes. They can be used for payments and are more likely to retain value than highly volatile cryptocurrencies. In practice, many stablecoins have failed to retain their "stable" value. Stablecoins are typically non-interest bearing and therefore do no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tether (cryptocurrency)
Tether, often referred to by its currency codes USD₮ and USDT, is a cryptocurrency stablecoin launched by Tether Limited Inc. in 2014. It is pegged to the United States dollar, and is distinct from a central bank digital currency (CBDC). As of 1 August 2024, Tether reported having $118.4 billion in reserves, including $5.3 billion in excess reserves. In the second quarter of 2024, the company achieved profit of $1.3 billion, contributing to a total profit of $5.2 billion for the first half of the year. Tether Limited also disclosed a net equity of $11.9 billion, and the stablecoin's market capitalization exceeded $114 billion. Tether is the largest cryptocurrency in terms of trading volume, holding 70% of the market share among stablecoins. In 2019, it surpassed bitcoin to become the most traded cryptocurrency globally. As of July 2024, Tether has more than 350 million users worldwide. Tether Limited is owned by iFinex, a company based in the British Virgin Islands which al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership records are stored in a digital ledger or blockchain, which is a computerized database that uses a consensus mechanism to secure transaction records, control the creation of additional coins, and verify the transfer of coin ownership. The two most common consensus mechanisms are proof of work and proof of stake. Despite the name, which has come to describe many of the fungible blockchain tokens that have been created, cryptocurrencies are not considered to be currencies in the traditional sense, and varying legal treatments have been applied to them in various jurisdictions, including classification as commodities, securities, and currencies. Cryptocurrencies are generally viewed as a distinct asset class in practice. The first cryptocu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USD Coin
USDC is a cryptocurrency stablecoin which is issued by Circle (company), Circle. It is Fixed exchange rate system, pegged to the United States dollar, and is distinct from a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Usage USDC operates as an Ethereum#ERC-20 tokens, Ethereum ERC-20 token and is also available on several other blockchain platforms such as Base and Polygon. Visa initiated a pilot program in 2023 to send USDC via the Solana (blockchain platform), Solana blockchain to payment firms Worldpay, Inc., Worldpay and Nuvei, who could then transfer payment to merchants. Assets and reserves Until mid-2021, Circle stated that each USDC was backed by either one U.S. dollar in reserve or by other "approved investments", though the specifics of these investments were not disclosed. In June 2021, Circle updated its website wording from "backed by US dollars" to "backed by fully reserved assets". As of 2020, USDC reserves were regularly attested (but not audited) by Grant Thornto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exchange-traded Commodities
An exchange-traded product (ETP) is a regularly priced security which trades during the day on a national stock exchange. ETPs may embed derivatives but it is not a requirement that they do so – and the investment memorandum (or offering documents) should be read with care to ensure that the pricing methodology and use (or not) of derivatives is explicitly stated. Typically, individual underlying securities, such as stocks and bonds, are not considered ETPs. Overview ETPs are often benchmarked to indices, stocks, commodities, or may be actively managed. There are several types of ETPs, including: *Closed-end funds (CEFs) are collective investment vehicles which restrict the investors right to redeem their units at net asset value (NAV) * Exchange-traded derivative contracts *Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are mutual funds trading at a stock exchange having agreements in place to ensure that the stock exchange price always is close to the NAV *Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Australia Bank
National Australia Bank Limited (abbreviated NAB, branded and stylised as nab) is one of the four largest Banking in Australia, financial institutions in Australia (colloquially referred to as "Big Four (banking), The Big Four") in terms of market capitalisation, earnings and customers. NAB was ranked the world's 21st-largest bank measured by market capitalisation and 52nd-List of largest banks, largest bank in the world as measured by total assets in 2019. , NAB operated 3,500 Bank@Post locations—including 7,000+ ATMs across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia—and served 9 million customers. NAB has an "AA−" long-term issuer rating by Standard & Poor's. History 1982–1999 National Australia Bank was formed as National Commercial Banking Corporation of Australia Limited in 1982 by the merger of National Bank of Australia, National Bank of Australasia and the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. The resulting company was subsequently renamed National Australia Bank Limite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing calculations and data processing. More advanced algorithms can use Conditional (computer programming), conditionals to divert the code execution through various routes (referred to as automated decision-making) and deduce valid inferences (referred to as automated reasoning). In contrast, a Heuristic (computer science), heuristic is an approach to solving problems without well-defined correct or optimal results.David A. Grossman, Ophir Frieder, ''Information Retrieval: Algorithms and Heuristics'', 2nd edition, 2004, For example, although social media recommender systems are commonly called "algorithms", they actually rely on heuristics as there is no truly "correct" recommendation. As an e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seigniorage
Seigniorage , also spelled seignorage or seigneurage (), is the increase in the value of money due to money creation minus the cost of producing the additional money. Monetary seigniorage is where government bonds are exchanged for newly created money by a central bank, allowing debt monetization ("borrowing" without repaying). The increased purchasing power of the government at the expense of public purchasing power imposes what is known as an inflation tax on the public. Seignorage can also refer to: * Seigniorage derived from specie (metal coins) is a tax added to the total cost of a coin (metal content and production costs) that a customer of the mint had to pay, and which was sent to the sovereign of the political region. * Seigniorage derived from banknotes is the difference between interest earned on securities acquired in exchange for banknotes and the cost of printing and distributing the notes. Seigniorage is the positive return, or carry, on issued notes and coin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BitGo
BitGo, Inc. is a digital asset trust company and security company, headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 2013 by Mike Belshe and Ben Davenport. Galaxy Digital announced its acquisition of BitGo in 2021 for $1.2 billion, although this acquisition was announced to have been canceled in 2022 after the crypto downturn, with BitGo continuing as an independent company. The company offers a multisignature bitcoin wallet service, where keys are divided among a number of owners to manage risk. Generally, BitGo wallets have three keys: one held by BitGo, and two held by the wallet's owner. Wallets can be configured in both hot and cold configurations, as well as non-custodial and custodial configurations. BitGo also serves as the sole custodian for bitcoin that people deposit to receive a tokenized form of that bitcoin known as Wrapped Bitcoin or WBTC that can be exchanged on the Ethereum blockchain. History Early growth and development (2014–2015) In June 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smart Contract
A smart contract is a computer program or a Transaction Protocol Data Unit, transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the reduction of need for trusted intermediators, arbitration costs, and fraud losses, as well as the reduction of malicious and accidental exceptions. Smart contracts are commonly associated with cryptocurrency , cryptocurrencies, and the smart contracts introduced by Ethereum are generally considered a fundamental building block for decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) applications. The original Ethereum white paper by Vitalik Buterin in 2014 describes the Bitcoin protocol as a weak version of the smart contract concept as originally defined by Nick Szabo, and proposed a stronger version based on the Solidity language, which is Turing complete. Since then, various cryptocurrencies have suppo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockchain
The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a Trusted timestamping, timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where Node (computer science), data nodes are represented by leaves). Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a ''chain'' (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are resistant to alteration because, once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be changed retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks and obtaining network consensus to accept these changes. Blockchains are typically managed by a peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network for use as a public distributed led ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agorist
Samuel Edward Konkin III (July 8, 1947 – February 23, 2004), also known as SEK3, was a Canadian-American libertarian philosopher and Austrian school economist. As the author of the publication ''New Libertarian Manifesto'', he was a proponent of a political philosophy he named agorism. Personal life Konkin was born on July 8, 1947, in Edmonton, Alberta, to Samuel Edward Konkin II and Helen Konkin. He had one brother named Alan. He married Sheila Wymer in 1990 and had one son named Samuel Evans-Konkin. The marriage ended soon afterward. Konkin was an atheist. Konkin was also noted for his style of dress: "To show his anarchist beliefs, he dressed completely in black, a color associated with that movement since the late nineteenth century". On February 23, 2004, Konkin died of natural causes in his apartment in West Los Angeles, California. He was buried alongside his father in Edmonton, Alberta. Fanzine contributions Konkin was a lifelong fan of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
