The Gemini dollar — the world’s first regulated stablecoin — combines the creditworthiness and price stability of the U.S. dollar with blockchain technology and the oversight of U.S. regulators. Get Gemini dollars 1-to-1 for U.S. dollars on Gemini. Gemini dollars can be used on the Ethereum network. ISSUER The Gemini dollar is issued by Gemini Trust Company, LLC, a New York trust company. BANK U.S. dollars that correspond to the Gemini dollars issued and in circulation are held at a U.S. bank and eligible for FDIC “pass-through” deposit insurance, subject to applicable limitations. EXAMINATION The U.S. dollar deposit balance is examined monthly by an independent registered public accounting firm to verify the 1:1 peg. All Independent Accountants’ Reports are published and available here. SECURITY AUDIT The Gemini dollar is a cryptographic token built on the Ethereum Network according to the ERC20 standard for tokens. The code of the Gemini dollar smart contracts has been audited by Trail of Bits, Inc., an information security research & development firm, whose report is publicly available here. Gemini was founded four years ago with a mission: build a bridge to the future of money. Gemini dollar aims to combine creditworthiness and price stability of the U.S. dollar with blockchain and the oversight of U.S. regulators, the New York State Department of Financial Service. Gemini dollar is a stable value coin that is: 1. issued by Gemini, a New York trust company 2. strictly pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar 3. built on Ethereum network according to ERC20 token standards Starting 10th September 2018, you will be able to convert U.S. dollars in your Gemini account into Gemini dollars and withdraw them to an Ethereum address. You will also be able to automatically convert GUSD back as USD into your Gemini account. GUSD is expected to be listed on Bibox soon.
The bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer payment network that operates on a cryptographic protocol. Users send and receive bitcoins, the units of currency, by broadcasting digitally signed messages to the network using bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet software. Transactions are recorded into a distributed, replicated public database known as the blockchain, with consensus achieved by a proof-of-work system called mining. Satoshi Nakamoto, the designer of bitcoin claimed that design and coding of bitcoin began in 2007. The project was released in 2009 as open source software. The network requires the minimal structure to share transactions. An ad hoc decentralized network of volunteers is sufficient. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will. Upon reconnection, a node downloads and verifies new blocks from other nodes to complete its local copy of the blockchain. A bitcoin is defined by a sequence of digitally signed transactions that began with the bitcoin's creation, as a block reward. The owner of a bitcoin transfers it by digitally signing it over to the next owner using a bitcoin transaction, much like endorsing a traditional bank check. A payee can examine each previous transaction to verify the chain of ownership. Unlike traditional check endorsements, bitcoin transactions are irreversible, which eliminates the risk of chargeback fraud. Although it is possible to handle bitcoins individually, it would be unwieldy to require a separate transaction for every bitcoin in a transaction. Transactions are therefore allowed to contain multiple inputs and outputs, allowing bitcoins to be split and combined. Common transactions will have either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and one or two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, to the sender. Any difference between the total input and output amounts of a transaction goes to miners as a transaction fee. In 2013, Mark Gimein estimated electricity consumption to be about 40.9 megawatts (982 megawatt-hours a day). In 2014, Hass McCook estimated 80.7 megawatts (80,666 kW). As of 2015, The Economist estimated that even if all miners used modern facilities, the combined electricity consumption would be 166.7 megawatts (1.46 terawatt-hours per year). To lower the costs, bitcoin miners have set up in places like Iceland where geothermal energy is cheap and cooling Arctic air is free. Chinese bitcoin miners are known to use hydroelectric power in Tibet to reduce electricity costs. Various potential attacks on the bitcoin network and its use as a payment system, real or theoretical, have been considered. The bitcoin protocol includes several features that protect it against some of those attacks, such as unauthorized spending, double spending, forging bitcoins, and tampering with the blockchain. Other attacks, such as theft of private keys, require due care by users.