If circulating supply is a proxy for ease of access, then we have
Tether Gold (XAUT) at $94M and 300 holders
Paxos Gold (PAXG) at $58M and 3,000 holders
Synthetic gold for Synthetix (sXAU) at $0.5M and 239 holders.
UPXAU as Raddy although it has 22 holders, perhaps because managed for Uphold users.
In parallel, there is currently a proposal on AAVE governance to add commodities to the lending protocol and gold is an obvious contestant for collateral.
From the circ supply / numbers of holders, it looks like Tether Gold is easier to mint for whales, but that PAXG is easier to access to smaller investors. Trading volume on PAXG are also significantly higher. Perhaps sXAU is a product that Synthetix would like to push and they could add the SNX incentive to this pool.
I think tokenised gold is an interesting product ; it does not have the same risk profile to Bitcoin but serves a āsimilarā purpose as an inflation hedge with lower upside/downside. It makes for a nice collateral. I suspect there would be interest. I also suspect it would help Paxos and Tether to gain adoption for their gold product, perhaps there is a way for them to incentivise this pool creation as well?
We can compare PAXG/XAUT to USDT and sXAU to DAI. I think such a pool has merit ; similar to the pools with USDT/USDC/DAI/sUSD and I would be in favour of this proposal.
Note that PAXG has a 0.02% movement fee on each transfer
Given these token represent an ounce of gold, what kind of manipulation are you foreseeing Jon?
There may be concerns with the issuers for custodial ones (Tether, Paxos) or you may be concerned by black swan events for sXAU for example, but I do not see manipulation possible as long as redemption works.
sXAU marketcap doesnāt matter, itās on the synthetix exchange, infinite liquidity. But itās a question whether people want some of that extra risk.
Also most people arenāt trading with sUSD and sBTC.
On the other hand, itās quite interesting. In this case, sXAU might actually have the most liquidity. Useful for keeping the pool in check, easiest to arbitrage with.
XAUT/PAXG might not drive enough volume by themselves.
Honestly, Iām not sure. I simply donāt know the various ways that markets can be manipulated. My lockups are for 4 years and I have no personal interest in arbitrage. Iāve never taken a flash loan, nor do I have the skills for that either.
But warning lights go off for me when I see small markets, and all of these markets, even the Tether and Pax ones are so tiny that it seems like a distraction from the core business.
I think Curve needs to stay focused.
I could be swayed if there were some sort of incentive along the lines of the sBTC pool in which Synthetix/Ren/Balancer made that pool attractive for LPs.
XAUT should obviously be ignored because Tether is shady to say the least, and should be considered un-backed until proven otherwise.
At least the economics surrounding the sXAU derivative and the backing of its valuation are clear, while the 2 other tokens have credible physical gold backings.
So iām in favor of a sXAU/PAXG/PGMT pool.
A pool being only as strong as its weakest token, I can say that if a gold pool is made including XAUT, iāll personnally choose not to participate in it.
As for PGMT I find it funny to see it voted the least despite being what i think is the strongest Gold based token of the 4 by being directly insured by the Australian national mint (which is one of the major gold mints in the world) and having absolutely 0 fees.
Regarding the argument of āstaying focusedā , iād say, if anything, it should apply first to all the existing -and incoming- USD poolsā¦
Iām personally not interested in losing money with exposure to a depreciating USD and right now the only choice of non-USD pool is BTC.
So I think a gold pool would be a good thing, even it if it remains a marginal pool. As i understand it, being an easy bridge between similar stablecoins is the reason for this platform and thereās none for gold tokens right nowā¦ so its the perfect usecase for Curve.
Letās just keep Tether out of it, no need for any additional risk on top of everything else.
Agreed on PGMT being severely undervalued here. We are already taking regulatory/institutional risk on USDC & wBTC in every pool we have. PGMT is the most credible gold token. Having sXAU offers a useful gateway into the Synth market and will make the pool have more functionality.
As for XAUT, if the āsafeā gold pool shows enough interest, we could consider a second pool that includes it at a later date. Especially when yield/collateral opportunities begin to open up for these tokens to a greater degree.
Who is going to bootstrap the pool? Each of us probably has a stack of one of the other, but i doubt anyone has all three or four in equal proportion and with 500 gas and poor liquidity on chain, somebody is going to take a beating being the first unless we agree to maybe trade privately and securely amongst ourselves beforehand to all equal up.
This is Dan from Universal Protocol; weāre thrilled to see a gold pool under discussion for Curve and would be honored to be included.
Weāre extremely excited to support Curveās gold pool, and UP would be happy to incentivize increased liquidity. Weāll kick around some numbers and put up a post with details, but weād both incentivize the pool and likely a 95/5 Balancer pool for our ecosystem reward tokens to help with their liquidity.
Weāre excited to see this happen; weāre big believers in gold-backed tokens and see the merits of a variety of approaches. Gold tokens are a great fit for Curve, given the relative stability of the asset suits the Curve formula, and thereās many market participants likely willing to warehouse gold risk in a similar manner as stablecoins. Looking forward to being involved, and happy to support and promote as we can. Cheers.
We expect a soft vote giving a chance to governance participants to choose which tokens they would like to see in this pool to go ahead in the coming days.
