Lebanese turn to cryptocurrency as economy tanks

Re:Lebanese turn to cryptocurrency as economy tanks by iskander on Thursday March 31, 2022 @02:22PM (#30870575)

>Not sure how you can use an asset whose price is fluctuating so wildly (and is correlated/anti-correlated to indicators and trends having little to do with your local government) as an effective hedge against incompetent/corrupt government.

The few legit / non-speculative uses of crypto are denominated in pegged stable coins like USDC, USDT, and some lower volume options denominated in EUR and other currencies. You can deposit these into crypto banks for a ~3-8% APY. A few of these options are even FDIC insured (e.g. Gemini's GUSD).

(this is unrelated to Bitcoin, which is more or less a volatile meme asset)

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Re:Lebanese turn to cryptocurrency as economy tanks by Hjfrf on Thursday March 31, 2022 @02:41PM (#30870797)

GUSD isn't FDIC insured, unless their homepage has it wrong. It's the dollar accounts in Gemini's name that are FDIC insured.

So if there's an exploit where GUSD can be stolen/duplicated, or if Gemini defaults the insurance is meaningless.

What it means is that if a bank where Gemini holds an account defaults, the government will pay Gemini up to $250k.

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Re:Lebanese turn to cryptocurrency as economy tanks by iskander on Thursday March 31, 2022 @03:14PM (#30871173)

Sorry for the somewhat sloppy phrasing. GUSD is 1:1 backed by USD, the bank accounts holding that USD are FDIC insured, and this arrangement has regulatory oversight: https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/gusd-stablecoin-gemini-do...

You're right that if you store your GUSD off Gemini and it gets stolen, then you're out of luck. I am not sure what happens if Gemini closes but my impression is that since they are a NYS trust they would have to their customers the 1:1 backing (rather than paying creditors with that money).

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