By Bill Taylor/Managing Editor - OK! Three super smart grads walk out of Princeton, go to the big city to meet some venture folks to convince them they are going to replace money. The venture people go "OH WOW" and together give the grads $133M. Big venture names, too; Bain Capital, GV, Andreesen Horowitz, etc.
Business Insider is reporting that the target market for the new token will be "the developing world, where even traditional currencies can experience stretches of volatility."
I mean, how hard can it be to replace money in the developing world? I get the premise, create a cryptocurrency that would be stable, predictable, have extremely low price volatility and not just be a means of speculation. Then add an "algorithmic central bank" to the mix and, have a "solid" sounding name too, like...........BASIS. Well THAT'S worth $133M, right?
The 3 grads want their currency to maintain a fixed value so the Basis currency will be much better suited to making purchases, grant loans, pay salaries and all the things that current money does.
According to the CEO and Co-founder Al Naji, ""By providing anyone with an internet connection access to a stable and secure medium of exchange for the first time, we believe Basis can significantly increase the efficiency of the economies of developing nations."
Uh, hello! There are already competitors like Tether which intends to keep its "new money" stable by backing it with the dollar (duh, really?).
Now, I didn't go to Stanford or Harvard BUT if 3 guys from Jersey walked into my offices and said they were going to start an algorithmic bank, issue tokens that would replace money which would get rid of central banks I don't think the first thing I would say is "here's $133M". But, maybe if I had gone to Harvard or Stanford I would get $133M. Damn, blew it.