Harmony, a sharding protocol with a trustless Ethereum bridge, has announced that OIN Finance, a decentralized stablecoin issuance & trading platform, will be deploying on Harmony, to create a ONE-backed or ONE-denominated stablecoin.
A ONE-backed stablecoin is an important achievement for Harmony, as this helps grow its DeFi ecosystem; and helps establish an important DeFi primitive that can be used in all other DeFi protocols.
The Harmony DeFi Lego Stack
One aim of Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, is to mimic to some degree the centralized finance world. In that world, the span of financial services include:
- Borrowing/Lending (fixed APR, variable interest APR)
- Savings accounts with APR
- Insurance
- Derivative markets
- Synthetic assets
- Exchanges
These are just some of the financial services that one can expect from any financial system. Additionally, it can get much more sophisticated and complicated.
The basics of any DeFi system are typically called “DeFi Primitives” — these are kind of like the base layer of a Lego set, upon which you can build the structure. A key Defi primitive is the stablecoin. And now Harmony will have one collateralized or “backed by” the ONE token.
Stablecoins that many have heard of are USDT, USDC, DAI, and others. Harmony is actively working with established stablecoin issuers to natively support Harmony.
A ONE-backed stablecoin is unique because, unlike other stablecoins which are backed by the VIX (Benchmark Protocol MARK), the cost of a unit of production for PoW miners (Meter MTR), and others.
With OIN Finance, the stablecoin on Harmony will be collateralized by ONE.
What is OINDAO?
The product to be built on Harmony is OINDAO, which is a decentralized stablecoin issuance platform that was previously launched on Ethereum.
While MakerDao allows only mainstream assets to be used as collateral to issue DAI, OINDAO allows projects to issue brand labeled stablecoins that are collateralized by their own tokens. With planned off-ramps and use cases such as swapping for other mainstream stablecoins, adding leverage, hedging, lending, and a plethora of ecosystem-specific utilities, the possibilities are endless with OINDAO.
MakerDAO, and other DeFi platforms like Compound, also act as gatekeepers in electing which projects are selected to become part of their pools, thereby establishing a large barrier of entry for the majority of projects. OIN is able to solve this problem and build a greater DeFi ecosystem, centered upon inclusion and permissionless engagement.
OIN’s vision is to provide DeFi functionalities to all crypto projects, large and small. Users will be able to unlock the liquidity of their favorite assets while ‘HODLing’ them. They will also be able to utilize the stablecoins for ecosystem-specific utilities; as leverage to buy more tokens, or even to swap for other stablecoins such as USDC and DAI.
What Does This Mean for the Harmony Community?
- Hedge against volatility – A stablecoin provides an excellent method to park money during trading or to use as a base currency. A ONE-backed stablecoin acts as the base currency in the ONE ecosystem, helping the ONE community to hedge against volatility.
- Encourage mainstream adoption – The ONE-backed stablecoin will encourage the mainstream adoption of ONE ecosystem projects. Most blockchain projects have the vision to change something in the real world. ONE-backed stablecoins create an additional abstraction layer for mainstream users, who will be able to interact with ONE-backed stablecoins in a similar manner to fiat — without having to worry about the underlying volatility of the crypto asset.
- Driving ONE scarcity – With more ecosystem-specific utilities behind a ONE-backed stablecoin, more ONE-backed stablecoins can be minted. The increasing amount of locked liquidity reduces the circulating supply of ONE, creating a closed value loop for ONE’s token economy.
- Unlocking and streamlining value on ONE protocol – OINDAO’s smart contract supports multi-coin farming for up to 20 different tokens. This support will create synergy between tokens on or bridged to ONE protocol. Users who stake ONE can farm 20 different project tokens in the ONE ecosystem.
“OINDAO and Harmony are aligned on another important point: our vision of the future is a world of many thriving communities. In that world, each chain will have its own ecosystem and strengths and weaknesses. Harmony wants to be a meaningful actor and add value to users across all chains. But the way to get there is to a chain that excels in interoperability. Starting with Ethereum, and gradually expanding to other popular ecosystems, OIN is on track to build a greater DeFi ecosystem and become a one-stop-shop for cross-chain stablecoin issuance, trading, and implementation.”
– The Harmony Team