Rubix — a stable backed, alternative currency on the Lamden Blockchain
What is it, what does it mean and why is everyone in Lamden excited about the imminent arrival of Rubix ($RBX)? Let's ask the Rubix team!
I ‘sat down’ for a virtual Q&A with Ataxia from the Rubix team.
What problem does Rubix intend to solve?
RubixDAO allows for you to retain your collateral whilst still being able to borrow its value in the form of stable assets. You provide collateral without having to sell your assets and borrow a stablecoin with two percent (2%) interest.
This is Lamden’s first native stablecoin protocol. It is community-governed and decentralized. The protocols loans are secured by always having more value locked (collateral) than the amount of debt issued to borrowers. Loans are paid out and repaid in TAD (TAU-Algo-Dollar).
How does it work?
The process is simple: create a RubixDao vault, deposit your crypto assets as collateral, and start borrowing stablecoins against your collateral’s value.
Example:
John has a small business. His business has 1,000,000 TAU as assets. Unfortunately, John’s hard disk suddenly stopped working (at no fault of the government this time). John now needs to decide whether to sell his TAU to buy his new hard disk or keep his TAU as his evaluation is that it will appreciate long term.
By utilizing the RubixDao protocol, John can deposit his 1,000,000 TAU into a vault and borrow stablecoins against that collateral to purchase his new hard disk. John gets his hard disk and gets to keep all of his TAU. Pursuant to this, if the TAU prices increase next week, John will still be able to realize those gains. Meanwhile, the stablecoins John took out against his collateral can be paid back at any time.
We also have RBX which is the Governance token, this token offers holders the ability to control the course of the Rubix protocol through a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Changes are made through proposals and voted on by holders of the governance token.
For ease of understanding, RubixDAO has been referred to as similar to MakerDAO? Which portions are the same, what are you doing differently?
MakerDAO was a landmark protocol that was a pioneer in this space and has shown us what is possible, and in doing so, set some goals and benchmarks for us to pursue. Our work is not a fork of MakerDAO, we wrote the entire thing from concept to implementation in python to be used on Lamden.
MakerDAO has evolved over time from where it started, and in my mind, certain sacrifices were made, particularly now more centralized from its origins which concerns me as this potentially allows for censorship. This is something we will be working to avoid with Rubix — so we can take those lessons from MakerDAO and improve on them. We want Rubix to be a decentralized safe haven that improves trust on the Lamden blockchain.
Did you consider pegging to alternate fiat currencies which show good strength and stability in the previous 5 years such as CHF, JPY, CAD, AUD, etc?
It’s an interesting idea as a market differentiator however at the early stages we are launching pegged to USD. It’s possible and there is always an opportunity through the DAO for the community to petition to move in a different direction.
Your site mentions “Deposit crypto assets, generate TAD”; at launch what crypto assets will be accepted as collateral?
We intend to launch accepting just TAU, keeping it simple to establish liquidity within the system; After that, we would consider WETH as a good second asset choice. Anything after that can be voted on by the DAO to be introduced.
What is your vision for the DAO ?
First and foremost we are looking to have the DAO direct the process from the start. At first, governance will be very fluid, delivered through groups and discussion however with time we will develop more robust tools to meet identified need.
We are seeking an open environment where the community can participate and the incentives are aligned.
What is the status of Rubix?
The application is essentially complete now, working through post-work bug fixes and some early internal feedback. We will be reaching out to the community soon to seek input for further development.
Do you intend on building anything else on Lamden?
I really want to build an NFT bridge on Lamden; I think this would be a smart move in the current climate.
We also intend to introduce elements from other projects we are involved with, namely, Strudel Finance and our trustless wrapped BTC. The current issue with wrapped BTC is it relies on multisig setups to HOLD the BTC. This means that there is a real possibility of them colluding to remove the underlying value of the wrapped BTC, causing the loss of the peg and value collapse.
The Strudel protocol addresses this issue by achieving a trustless BTC wrapper. You do not have to rely on a group of anonymous custodians to hold the keys to your Bitcoin. The Strudel wrapping procedure permanently locks BTC to mint vBTC, which increases TVL and provides a fully compatible Ethereum ecosystem asset.
Our intention is to introduce this asset within the Lamden ecosystem which would allow more liquid markets for all participants — a TAD-vBTC pair on Rocketswap for instance.
Why did you decide to build on Lamden?
As a group, we have all followed Lamden’s development for some time and were always interested in the team’s approach. We saw dApp development building on Lamden; Will came up with the idea to build a stable coin and it all flowed from there.
Working on blockchains such as Lamden gives us the opportunity to explore and develop without the impediments of more mature systems. We can freely explore new ideas, trial use cases, and primitives.
The Lamden team and developer community as a whole has been very supportive providing guidance, answering questions; And we have recently taken on Benji from Rocketswap as an advisor to further assist.
Tell us about your team — who are they, what are they working on?
- Ataxia — Strategic development, cryptoeconomics, product, and incentive design
- Testtest — Back-end Developer
- Majesty & team — Front-end Development
- Will — Strategic advisor
- Benji — Advisor (Rocketswap)
How do you intend to communicate with the community?
Discord is going to be our go-to choice, it allows more functionality to build the community we are looking for and allows people to participate in the different aspects of the DAO easily.
How do we get RBX?
- seed investor round (closed investment by Lamden and Rocketswap orgs)
- community presale investment
- liquidity incentives
The Lamden Ecosystem — Rubix, reinforcing a suite of existing applications, tokens, and use-cases
Responses from Stuart Farmer project founder of Lamden.
What strategic benefits do you see for Lamden with the arrival of Rubix?
The introduction of a stable coin to Lamden stabilizes the value of the network (hence the name) and allows for more developers and stakeholders to come on board because the volatility risk has been decreased.
Is Lamden supporting Rubix development through Lamden Labs?
Yes, we have supported them through funding and liquidity.
