On December 17th, 2018, Alchemint launched its SDUSD stable coin issuance platform to the NEO MainNet. The team delayed announcing the launch until December 26th so it could first monitor the performance of the smart contract. The stable coin distribution platform aims to mortgage digital assets through smart contracts and manage collateral risk. Eventually, Alchemint aims to anchor a stable coin to any asset including fiat currency, cryptocurrency, and other commodities.
Alchemint seeks to differentiate itself from other stable coin projects in the frequency of its audit reports. Users will be able to audit the stable coins at any time using the blockchain explorer.
Stable coins are designed to maintain a fixed price or value and are backed by various methods of collateral. The three most popular models are fiat-collateral, cryptocurrency-collateral, and non-collateral.
Fiat-collateral has a reserve of an equivalent value of fiat currency, equal to the number of stable coins in circulation. The model can provide sufficient liquidity, but there might be issues with centralization and transparency (i.e. if the issuer refuses to share their reserve account information).
Cryptocurrency-collateral pegs the stable coin to the value of a fiat currency but mortgages digital assets for collateral. As a risk mitigation strategy, issuers will often require the stable coin user to over-collateralize the coin or will use tactics such as compulsory liquidation. As the collateral is locked in a smart contract, there is transparency, which negates the need for a centralized management model.
Lastly, the non-collateral method uses an “algorithmic bank” model, which adjusts the prices of the stable coin by influencing the supply and demand of the market. If the value of the stable coin is lower than $1, an amount of bond tokens will be released, which are later redeemable for the stable coin once it has returned back to its 1:1 peg ratio. With this model, capital needs to flow into the market continuously, or else the stability of the coin will deviate from its $1 peg.