Crypto investment heavyweights are backing Reserve, a stablecoin project designed to create a new universal store of value while generating potential profits for investors.
Coinbase Ventures is backing the project, and Reserve executives have now confirmed that Bitcoin (BTC) bull Peter Thiel and Y Combinator president Sam Altman have each purchased a claim to receive tokens in the future.
The stablecoin will be backed by up to 100 on-chain and off-chain assets and utilize a dual token system, as described by crypto researcher Lark Davis.
“Why would a stablecoin go up in value? There’s actually a two-token model. The first is RSR. That is the token I own and the one you will want to buy if you want to invest in Reserve. This token is the governance token, allowing holders to vote on proposals, and it gives rights to arbitrage within the network.
RSR guarantees the collateralization rate of RSV, which is the stablecoin, and it maintains the value of RSV. So when the price of the RSV stablecoin goes above a dollar, then the protocol will sell new or excess RSV for either RSR or tokenized assets to then correct the price. RSR has an automated token burn mechanism which will decrease the supply over time, meaning that the more that we see the RSV stablecoin getting used, the more tokens will be burned. Now this is super important for the long-term price potential of the RSR token.”
The Reserve protocol plans to roll out in three phases. The first is a centralized phase where the Reserve token (RSV) is backed by a small number of collateral tokens pegged to the US dollar. The second is a decentralized phase where RSV will be backed by a changing basket of assets but still pegged in price to the US dollar. The third, independent phase involves RSV no longer being pegged to the dollar. At that point, its goal will be to offer a stabilized alternative not subject to fluctuations in the dollar’s value.
Reserve’s app is live in Venezuela and they are expanding to Argentina next. Charlie Smith, the company’s head of business development of the Reserve Protocol, says customers should expect more Latin American markets, the US, and possibly Lebanon after that.
Reserve’s RSR token, a cryptocurrency used to facilitate the stability of RSV, is currently a temporary placeholder ERC-20 token. Reserve’s protocol, however, is expected to launch on the Ethereum mainnet later this year, and then that ERC-20 token will be replaced by a fully functional token.