Oddbean

Thank you for that. But how is the USD token pegged to USD? It requires a lightning payment (Bitcoin) to enter/exit. So what happens if everyone enters now at $61k, and then price drops to $55k, and everyone attempts to exit?

I do not think this should be a trading vehicle, thus I suppose each mint can make up their own rules. However down the line with a liquid derivatives market one could potentially manage a more sophisticated mint. However answering to individuals need of a less volatile medium of exchange is a use case and should have a price. Thus the mint could simply transfer the exchange rate risk upon to the user, meaning if btc price moves, the cost of exiting would be upon the currency holder and the benefits equally goes to the mint for its longevity and sustainability. BTC price down -> user gets entry amount of sats BTC price up -> mint gets entry-exit sats. A model like this would also give interesting possibilities for mints as revenue vehicles.

I'm not asking because I want a trading vehicle but because I understand the risk. And if the risk is going to be unloaded onto the user, it isn't really removing the volatility. It's simply delaying the effect until exit. If it is going to be "stable" pegged to the USD, then there has to be a backing asset that moves with the USD. If the backing asset is Bitcoin, then there will need to be inflows/outflows with the price changes. And that's what is not really explained. If I buy $1 of this token ecash, how do I know I still have $1 a month from now. Granted, using any mint comes with risks and is a custodial solution, but a dollar peg seems to add more risks on top of that and I haven't seen how that risk is yet mitigated.

I didn’t mean to imply anything. I understand the complexity and there definately needs to be more clarity on mints. Interesting possibilities though. Aligning assumptions on use cases for ecash, ie type of user, amounts, timeframes, would maybe be a good start before evaluating risks.

Understood. And maybe you are correct. This is just a project to show what is possible. They may not entirely understand how it should work themselves. Maybe it's another way to wrap Bitcoin in a way that others find it easy to use and understand. Maybe being super self-custodial, I unfairly jump to how folks could get rugged. But that's one of the reasons I was drawn to Bitcoin to begin with.