I'm extremely interested in the concept of using inverse perpetual swaps to create "synthetic" USD. Other projects are pursuing this (Kollider, Galoy, etc), but I am not at all interested in Hayes' proposal that involves centralized custodians + an ETH DAO (lol) to manage the effort.

It would take coordination, but it feels like this could be done on lightning with a Robosats-like maker/taker interface + Cashu for transferring the synthetic USD.

If this can't be done in a decentralized and trust-minimzed fashion, it really isn't much better than the Tether/Circle solutions that already exist.

I think he brings up an interesting point about the main banking system making alot from fees and are thus disincentivized to adopt any form of crypto. But if crypto were to handle the same amount of transactions that the main banking system handles then fees are arguably going to go up one way or the other due to supply and demand. So from a fees perspective we might not be much better off, its the permissionless nature between the two systems that make the difference imo and stablecoins are not permissionless due to being centralized. There is an illusion of permissionlessness atm. but only because regulators are letting it happen. Could shut down the stablecoins overnight. And if Bitcoin didnt exist then they would because shutting down stablecoins when bitcoin exists just gives bitcoin a massive advantage. But i could be wrong.

I was wondering why he doesn’t mention Bitcoin Beach Wallet and or Galloy by name?

He only briefly mentions DEX (he means Collider.xyz) and says the liquidity is not there yet.

He is right, of course, but that is a chicken and egg problem. Make more deposits in BBW and save them in synthetic “UsD” and the liquidity will automatically come 🤔