BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes proposes Bitcoin-based stablecoin

Amid the United States regulators increasingly scrutinizing stablecoins, the community continues to pitch new ideas of stablecoins independent from the U.S. dollar.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder and former CEO of BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, has proposed creating a new stablecoin with a value pegged to the sum of $1 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) and one inverse perpetual swap of BTC against USD. He outlined the idea of the potential Satoshi Nakamoto Dollar (NUSD), or NakaDollar, in a blog post titled “Dust on Crust” on March 8.

Unlike major reserve-backed USD stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), the proposed NakaDollar will not depend on any USD reserves but will rely solely upon derivatives exchanges that list liquid inverse perpetual swaps, Hayes said.

The proposed stablecoin is planned to be based specifically on a set of short BTC positions and USD inverse perpetual swaps, maintaining its 1:1 peg to USD via mathematical transactions between the new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), NakaDAO, authorized participants (AP) and derivatives exchanges.

The process of creating the NakaDollar stablecoin will be entirely free from any movements of USD, which require the services of banks, Hayes stated. He still noted that the proposed NUSD stablecoin will not be really decentralized, adding:

“The points of failure in the NakaDollar solution would be centralized crypto derivatives exchanges. I excluded decentralized derivative exchanges because they are nowhere near as liquid as their centralized counterparts [...]”

The news comes amid the owner of Silvergate Bank, a major cryptocurrency-enabled bank in the United States, shutting operations and liquidating business amid the ongoing market downturn. The shutdown came quickly after the New York Department of Financial Services abruptly ordered Paxos Trust to stop the issuance of BUSD, one of the largest USD stablecoins on the market. As previously reported, Paxos held deposits in a few banks, including Silvergate and Signature crypto bank.

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Hayes is not alone in considering USD-independent stablecoins amid the ongoing pressure from regulators. In February, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao suggested that the cryptocurrency industry will likely move to other fiat currencies as a base for stablecoins, including euro, yen, or Singapore dollars.