We have not been successful in our publicity efforts for the Relay Stablecoin System, but that does not mean the end of the project. The vision of a decentralized, private stablecoin for everyday use remains as clear as ever, and the team is discussing alternative options such as going forward with a free faucet distribution or a fresh campaign with a rebrand.

Famous VC firm a16z's purchase of 6% of the total MKR token supply is yet more evidence of growing recognition of stablecoins. This particular event is exciting because, like Relay, Maker utilizes a decentralized collateral mechanism.

Bump.

The recent buzz around Ripple (XRP) and xRapid underscores the promise of cryptocurrencies to disrupt common financial uses. What XRP may do for bank transfers, a stablecoin can do for consumer cash usage. Only the Relay Dollar is constructed specifically with this use case in mind.

This is a fair concern, and one that has been raised previously. To restate our previous response:

The Relay Stablecoin System token sale public round has begun! Be a part of the private stablecoin for everyday use.

ETH address: 0xC951f024B8abf73904660b74C24Af2c70079B4F9
Max raise: 2000 ETH
Full details: https://medium.com/@RelayFoundation/token-sale-public-round-participant-guide-87d18966beb5

Six hours until the public round starts! Contribution specifics such as address and a walkthrough will be announced at 0:00 UTC to kick things off.

With less than 30 hours to go before the public round begins, it's a good time to reshare these primers on Relay's key features and advantages over other stablecoins:

https://medium.com/@RelayFoundation/introducing-the-relay-stablecoin-system-8e8b7e460bcd

https://medium.com/@RelayFoundation/why-relay-is-the-tether-killer-ffb2fc13c27

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There will not be additional Relay Tokens introduced into circulation via mining rewards.

Though not organized in one section to address all these questions together, the relevant information is all contained in the white paper. For discussion and ease of reading, summarized responses are as follows:

New blockchain vs smart contracts on Ethereum:
The Relay stablecoin system operates on an separate blockchain based on Ethereum. Ethereum was selected as the progenitor technology for Relay due to its long history of successful functioning with smart contracts, which are required for the collateralization system.

Worst case value / liquidity scenarios:
Although talking about token price and appreciation potential is generally bad form, it is relevant to this particular question. At Ethereum's current price of ~$200 (actually less as of this writing), the total capitalization of all XRL tokens to ever be circulated is roughly $500,000. We believe that this valuation provides significant price support to the downside and significant upside potential with any amount of adoption or usage. From a funding perspective, this sum is sufficient to provide project runway in liquidated ETH until team allocations or Ecosystem Development Fund capital should be of sufficient value to maintain the team.

Undercollateralization:
The initial collateralization ratio of 200% is set to minimize the risk of an undercollateralization event in case of a market crash. When the value of XRD drops below the dollar peg due to undercollateralization or market perception of a risk thereof, XRD holders are incentivized to decrease the XRL supply by redeeming their XRD for XRL, with the redeemed XRD burned and removed from circulation. This creates a group insurance feature
through proportional redemptions that eliminates the risk of a self-reinforcing 'run on the bank' panic scenario.

Price feeds:
When available, Chainlink oracles (or the first fully functional decentralized Ethereum oracles) will be utilized to report accurate XRL and XRD prices. Until that time, a native Relay DAO oracle acquiring prices from exchange APIs as is the sole source of XRD and XRL price information into the Relay stablecoin system. Other price reporting mechanisms do exist, such as staked bids submitted by collateral holders, but they have a substantial barrier to entry due to their complexity and are unsuitable at this time for a currency focused on simplicity of use and mass adoption.

MakerDAO's DAI, Gemini's Gemini Dollar, Bitfinex's USDT, TrustToken's TUSD - there are many public stablecoins, but only Relay offers privacy and decentralization on top of stable value.

The Relay public round begins at 0:00 UTC, September 15 - read more at https://medium.com/@RelayFoundation/relay-public-round-details-announcement-ef9e6dea9102.

The Relay public round begins on September 15th! Specifics of the sale terms will be released within 24 hours.

The Gemini exchange's announcement of its Gemini Dollar stablecoin is a welcome development that recognizes the rampant problems in the current stablecoin landscape, but it does not go far enough. Privacy and decentralization are still needed for a truly useful stablecoin.

Even in markets like these, the Relay Dollar stays solvent and fully backed thanks to our collateral model allowing the supply to 'breathe' with market forces. Tether has no such mechanism, and MakerDAO's is much more punitive.

A DAO holding structure fully decentralizes Relay's collateral mechanism, allowing anyone to move money in or out of the system at any time. This is the promise of blockchain and smart contracts, fulfilled.

MakerDAO is the most successful example of a decentralized stablecoin that uses on-chain collateral in a DAO to create trustable value. Relay surpasses it with privacy and a collateral token unexposed to shocks to Ethereum.

The vote of confidence is appreciated.

The need for reliable stablecoins is never more evident than in markets such as these. Imagine if Tether were found to be insolvent at this time - the crypto world needs a stablecoin like Relay with publicly auditable collateral.