Cardano360 is a monthly video podcast covering the latest news and topics from across the Cardano ecosystem.
Hosted by IOG, Cardano360 is available on the IOG YouTube channel and is aired on the last Thursday of every month.
EMURGO Fintech Managing Director Vineeth Bhuvanagiri was featured on the latest January 2023 episode of #Cardano360 that aired on January 26 and spoke about news related to the upcoming launch of USDA, a regulatory-compliant USD-backed stablecoin for the Cardano ecosystem.
Below is a recap of the different topics related to USDA Vineeth touched upon in the full episode here.
On the vision behind the USDA Cardano stablecoin
The goal of EMURGO Fintech’s Anzens suite which includes the USDA stablecoin is to bridge the gap between the traditional financial world (TradFi) and the decentralized finance world (DeFi) which are still relatively separated. Having users go in between the two has been relatively difficult in the past due to the many regulations and restrictions on one side and a completely different system on the other.
The vision with USDA is to solve that problem and bring a real-world use case for Cardano ADA by enabling Cardano ada users to connect their self-custodial wallets with the traditional financial world to get a regulated account through our US-registered financial services partner and then port it back over to the Cardano DeFi ecosystem if they so choose to do so.
On why Cardano needs a fiat-backed stablecoin
The biggest reason why the Cardano blockchain needs a fiat-backed stablecoin is that the Cardano blockchain has the necessary infrastructure in place such as DEXs (decentralized exchanges), applications, and users to now expand.
In other blockchain ecosystems, stablecoins have acted as a catalyst for driving DeFi growth and we believe that having a fiat-backed stablecoin within the greater Cardano ecosystem will help accelerate the growth of Cardano’s DeFi and also drive the building of more real-world DeFi applications.
On how USDA is different from USDT and USDC stablecoins
There are a couple of differences, but the main one is there still isn’t a fully backed regulatory-compliant stablecoin native to the Cardano ecosystem. By introducing USDA, we believe that we can fill a need within the current Cardano community for a native Cardano asset stablecoin.
Other differences include our plan to have monthly attestations by an auditing firm to ensure that all of the USDA issued is 100% backed. In that case, we are more similar to USDC, where all of the cash that is being held in custody will be audited.
On making USDA a secure stablecoin for users
There are two forms of security when it comes to stablecoins.
One is on the actual technical integration implementation side, and the other form of security is regarding the actual accounting and bookkeeping.
Regarding the technical security side, we’re looking to get our SOC 2 Compliance audit underway for us to demonstrate that our security posture is in line with other leading financial institutions within the United States because when you are dealing with actual user funds, you can’t have a technical flaw that leads to the loss of those funds. So that’s one area which we’re substantially focusing on to maintain security and protect customer information.
On the compliance & auditing side, we’ve designed our smart contracts for the minting and burning if there’s any kind of mismatch between the funds that are being held and the actual amount of stablecoins issued. We are also going to provide monthly funding attestations regarding the total amount of funds that are being held within our account.
On how people can get the USDA stablecoin
There are a couple of different ways for people to get access to USDA.
US citizens can get it through debit credit card, ACH, or wire transfer via Anzens.
Beyond the United States, we are on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis to make sure that we’re compliant with all of the regulations regarding stablecoins. So, people that are outside of the US on launch day, can get access to USDA through the various DEXs which will allow people to convert their ADA to USDA in a relatively straightforward manner. And we’re also in discussions with various centralized exchanges as well to eventually list USDA.
For now, people should head over to https://www.anzens.com and sign up for the $USDA waitlist for further information.
Be the first to know about Cardano’s USDA stablecoin launch
USDA is a regulatory-compliant fiat-backed stablecoin for the Cardano ecosystem and is fully backed 1:1 by USD. It is scheduled to launch in early 2023 and is the first product from the “Anzens” suite of fintech products from EMURGO Fintech.
To be ready for the official arrival of USDA, sign up and join the waitlist now at https://www.anzens.com
About USDA
- Official Homepage: anzens.com
- Twitter: @AnzensOfficial
About EMURGO
- Official Homepage: dev.emurgo.io
- Twitter (Global): @EMURGO_io
- YouTube: EMURGO channel
- Discord: EMURGO Community
- Facebook: @EMURGO.io
- Instagram: @EMURGO_io
- LinkedIn: @EMURGO_io
