Hey Luca! Can you delve a bit deeper into why you didn't like the "reserve currency" terminology? You gleam to it with your "maybe a pun to the USD", but I'd like to understand better why you don't like the terminology if being a reserve currency is exactly what the USD is. Is it because OHM isn't pegged, or because you don't see it being used as a main reserve asset/collateral in other protocols?
"OHM will be most successful if it is positioned as a USD-alternative primitive for DeFi. We will work hard to get OHM integrated into money markets, DEX pairs, and yield farming protocols. We will also encourage its use as an alternative to holding USD. Eventually, you’ll be able to quote prices in OHM with a reasonable expectation that they’ll remain the same in the future. At that point, we hope to see people flee to OHM as a safe haven during risk-off periods rather than USD. We will do as much as we can to realize this, but ultimately it is a mindset and belief system (like any money or currency) that will rely on the support of you, the community."
Sam, as usual I will try to give you my very personal answer, for what it’s worth.
Anything, in principle, can be a currency. Shells, USD, BTC, OHM, diamonds. But there are certain characteristics that make a good currency and others that don’t. You know I am a currency junkie, so I’d like to push the argument a bit further but if you want to know more about what I think of currencies more philosophically I’d suggest you read my piece on Angle. Again, my views and mine only.
Regarding $OHM, I think it could well be a currency, but a very BAD one. There are reasons that go beyond governance. In general, $OHM is extremely volatile, and that makes of it a very bad reserve asset. Yes, it is true, $BTC had the same problem originally (and still does) but I do not see $OHM having good traits to become that. The currency fluctuates brutally around its floor, with a currency multiplier that was before this drawdown very aggressive. Wild volatility around reserve assets is not so good.
On top of it, such volatility of the currency premium is left to the wild, and it’s not programmatic in any kind - directionally or algorithmically. Do we want that from a currency? Personally, I don’t. The anti-cyclical nature of modern currencies helped a lot to smooth the short term credit cycle in the past, and $OHM left to the wild spirits actually works in the opposite direction: the money crashes when the market sentiment does too. Disorderly. I don’t want that from a currency.
I think $OHM is an incredibly powerful liquidity aggregator, but one destined to go through these Big Bang / Big Crunch cycles we have seen. You can play it, as a trader, hoping it might give you attractive leverage on the reserve assets at the beginning of the new phase. Good volatility supermarket? Maybe. Good currency? I don’t think so. Good reserve currency? No way.
Again, those are my opinions and happy to be proven wrong. As usual I am trying to keep my mind open.
Hey Luca! Can you delve a bit deeper into why you didn't like the "reserve currency" terminology? You gleam to it with your "maybe a pun to the USD", but I'd like to understand better why you don't like the terminology if being a reserve currency is exactly what the USD is. Is it because OHM isn't pegged, or because you don't see it being used as a main reserve asset/collateral in other protocols?
I just found this in their initial introduction blog (https://olympusdao.medium.com/introducing-olympusdao-a-true-digital-currency-protocol-648c00c572d2):
"OHM will be most successful if it is positioned as a USD-alternative primitive for DeFi. We will work hard to get OHM integrated into money markets, DEX pairs, and yield farming protocols. We will also encourage its use as an alternative to holding USD. Eventually, you’ll be able to quote prices in OHM with a reasonable expectation that they’ll remain the same in the future. At that point, we hope to see people flee to OHM as a safe haven during risk-off periods rather than USD. We will do as much as we can to realize this, but ultimately it is a mindset and belief system (like any money or currency) that will rely on the support of you, the community."
Sam, as usual I will try to give you my very personal answer, for what it’s worth.
Anything, in principle, can be a currency. Shells, USD, BTC, OHM, diamonds. But there are certain characteristics that make a good currency and others that don’t. You know I am a currency junkie, so I’d like to push the argument a bit further but if you want to know more about what I think of currencies more philosophically I’d suggest you read my piece on Angle. Again, my views and mine only.
Regarding $OHM, I think it could well be a currency, but a very BAD one. There are reasons that go beyond governance. In general, $OHM is extremely volatile, and that makes of it a very bad reserve asset. Yes, it is true, $BTC had the same problem originally (and still does) but I do not see $OHM having good traits to become that. The currency fluctuates brutally around its floor, with a currency multiplier that was before this drawdown very aggressive. Wild volatility around reserve assets is not so good.
On top of it, such volatility of the currency premium is left to the wild, and it’s not programmatic in any kind - directionally or algorithmically. Do we want that from a currency? Personally, I don’t. The anti-cyclical nature of modern currencies helped a lot to smooth the short term credit cycle in the past, and $OHM left to the wild spirits actually works in the opposite direction: the money crashes when the market sentiment does too. Disorderly. I don’t want that from a currency.
I think $OHM is an incredibly powerful liquidity aggregator, but one destined to go through these Big Bang / Big Crunch cycles we have seen. You can play it, as a trader, hoping it might give you attractive leverage on the reserve assets at the beginning of the new phase. Good volatility supermarket? Maybe. Good currency? I don’t think so. Good reserve currency? No way.
Again, those are my opinions and happy to be proven wrong. As usual I am trying to keep my mind open.
Thanks for your comments, Luca