Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, has made a tweet that suggests the project might consider launching a stablecoin — a version of DAI — in the future.
The statement might come as a surprise to some. Hoskinson said that he started in the space with stablecoins and that he has been thinking about them for seven years. Cardano and its token ADA are popular among investors as an alternative to Ethereum and EOS and is banked by many as a long-term investment.
Too Early for Cardano to Think About Stablecoins?
With a strong emphasis on academic research, Cardano has made progress with its development — most recently launching the Shelley phase, which brought decentralization to the network onto its testnet. It saw over five billion ADA staked. The project still has quite some ways to go but investors are confident that it could become a viable competitor to Ethereum.
It is true that, even if a Cardano variant of DAI was launched, it would be a long time before it came to fruition. Cardano currently has three more phases before it is considered complete — Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire — which will, respectively, bring smart contracts, scaling, and governance solutions.
Stablecoin Appeal is Understandable
However, Cardano is no small name in the market and, should its potential as a network grow as expected, the launch of a stablecoin could have mass appeal and greatly increase the influx of network users and boost growth. Several stablecoins have already arrived on the market, with Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) and DAI being the most notable of the bunch. Both have gained attention for their own reasons — Tether for criticisms on whether it has the reserves to back each token with dollar collateral and DAI for being a decentralized cryptocurrency that is backed by ETH collateral (with more tokens being added for support in due time.) How this Cardano variant of DAI would function we do not yet know.