cryptoknowmics.com
The publisher of the British newspapers The Independent and Evening Standard and former owner of Russia's National Standard Bank, Alexander Lebedev, is launching a new cryptocurrency venture. Sergey Mendeleev, co-founder, and CEO of the decentralized finance (DeFi) firm, InDeFi, announced at the Blockchain Life conference in Moscow that the company intends to launch a ruble-backed stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. According to Sergey Mendeleev, the idea has nothing to do with the digital ruble issued by the Bank of Russia.
MakerDAO's DAI Algorithmic Stablecoin
Cryptocurrency rubles will be issued by a decentralized smart contract with over-collateralization, following the example of MakerDAO's DAI algorithmic stablecoin. In the MakerDAO system, individuals may borrow DAI and lock Ether in a smart contract. The Ether collateral kept in the smart contract lockup serves as security for the loans. Last year, Lebedev and Mendeleev introduced InDeFi, a service that offers loans in stablecoins. Former KGB officer Lebedev lost favor with President Vladimir Putin's administration in 2008 when an article he owned in a minor Russian newspaper claimed that Putin had an affair with Olympic champion gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Lebedev failed in his endeavors in publishing and finance.
DeFi Protocol Encounters Problems
The increase in speculators looking for ETH loans to boost their chances of winning forked Ether Proof-of-Work (ETHPoW) tokens has caused problems for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. The debate has become more popular over the past few months as many Ether miners plan to continue mining on a forked PoW chain, or maybe even several chains, after the eagerly anticipated Merge. In the case of a fork, on-chain ETH holders utilizing non-custodial wallets or holding onto exchanges that support ETHPoW will receive airdropped equivalent amounts of the new coins.