The Nectar token is not intended to raise funds for Ethfinex, and will not be sold through any form of crowdsale, ICO or fundraising mechanism. Instead, the Nectar token will act as a loyalty token. The NEC is designed to maintain liquidity and market efficiency through the incentivisation of platform loyalty. Users who choose to register for the scheme and take on the role of market maker on the Ethfinex platform, or using integrated decentralised exchange protocols, will automatically generate NEC’s, as a loyalty reward, and subsequently earn a stake in the future development, governance and success of the platform. NEC will adhere to the ERC20 Token Standard to ensure cross-compatibility with alternate exchange protocols interfacing with Ethfinex. This allows other protocols and exchanges to reward users for the liquidity they contribute. The fundamental purpose of the Nectar token is to reward market makers for the value they create, in turn encouraging them to maintain market thickness and minimised spreads on the platform trading pairs. Loyalty points entitle holders to loyalty rewards held in the Liquidity Token Smart Contract, which can be redeemed (in part or in whole) through the Redeem Mechanism upon request. Loyalty points can be traded on a secondary market amongst white listed Ethfinex users. If no tokens are redeemed at the end of a 28 day cycle, the total supply of NEC will grow. Ethfinex will hold an initial supply of NEC which will not grow over time — as a result, the percentage ownership will gradually decrease as new tokens are issued and redeemed. The exact governance mechanism will be particularly important in ensuring the details and implementation of the token can be refined in time for the Ethfinex launch. Defining the perfect liquidity incentive mechanism will be impossible without continuous testing and feedback in real markets, and the governance will complete the loop in allowing improvements to take place. Following community feedback, we have decided against the internal redesign of the chosen governance mechanism; instead, we will look to adopt the industry best practise. There are a number of fantastic projects in the space who are currently working on this, such as Aragon and District0x, some of whom we are in contact with, and we are eager to refine our governance model in accordance with them. Ethfinex has come out with a smart solution and is not organizing a direct ICO but I see it as an indirect one with a long-term range into the future where decentralized exchanges will be the future or crypto-economy. Ethfinex’s and Nectar’s token development will bring all the ERC20 tokens under one platform dedicated to Ethereum token economy which in itself will be a huge thing. The total initial supply of NEC is 1 billion tokens out which the current circulating supply is 500,000,000 NEC. This supply will be distributed to the team and early adopters as loyalty points and this will also keep growing every 30 days, with new tokens being created based on market maker programme.
Dai is a stablecoin. It is an Ethereum ERC20 token that is pegged to $1 USD — every Dai is worth $1, and will always be worth $1, regardless of how much Dai is in existence. There is no centralized authority like Tether that backs its value, and no traditional bank that backs each Dai with a real US dollar. There is nothing that can be shut down, and no centralized authority that needs to be trusted. Dai lives entirely within the Ethereum blockchain using smart contracts. *Features of Dai: 1. Dai is always worth $1 USD each 2. It can be freely traded like any other ERC20 token 3. Anyone with an Ethereum wallet can own, accept, and transfer it 4. It can be exchanged without any middleman 5. No individual person or company has control over it 6. No government or authority can shut it down *How Dai Works? Dai is a masterpiece of game theory that carefully balances economic incentives in the pursuit of one goal — a token that is continuously approaching the value of $1 USD. When Dai is worth above $1, mechanisms work to decrease the price. When Dai is worth below $1, mechanisms work to increase the price. The rational actors that take part in these mechanisms do so because they earn money anytime Dai is not perfectly worth $1. This is why Dai is always floating slightly above or below $1 — it is an endless wave function bouncing infinitely close to $1, but never quite achieving it. The farther Dai goes from $1, the more incentive there is to fix it. This is the magic of Dai. *How is Dai Created? Dai is simply a loan against Ethereum. By using the MakerDAO dApp, advanced users can take loans out in Dai against their ETH holdings. First, ETH is turned into “wrapped ETH” (WETH), which is simply an ERC20 wrapping around ETH. This “tokenizes” ETH so it can be used like any other ERC20 token. Next, WETH is turned into “pooled ETH” (PETH), which means it joins a large pool of Ethereum that is the collateral for all Dai created. Once you have PETH, you can create a “collateralized debt position” (CDP), which locks up your PETH and allows you to draw Dai against your collateral, which is PETH. As you draw out Dai, the ratio of debt in the CDP increases. There is a debt limit that sets a maximum amount of Dai you can draw against your CDP. Once you have Dai, you can spend or trade it freely like any other ERC20 token. *There are several important reasons why you would create Dai, despite the hassle: 1. You need a loan, and have an asset (ETH) to use as collateral for your loan 2. You believe ETH is going up in value. You can use your CDP to buy ETH on margin — you lock up your ETH in a CDP, draw Dai against it, use the Dai to buy more ETH on an exchange, and then use that ETH to further increase the size of your CDP. This can be accomplished without any third-party or centralized authority allowing you to do so — margin trading can be accomplished entirely on the blockchain. 3. The demand for Dai has driven the price above $1 USD. When this occurs, you can create Dai then immediately sell it on an exchange for greater than $1 USD. This is essentially free money, and is one of the mechanisms the Maker system uses to keep Dai pegged to $1 USD. Dai being worth over $1 USD encourages more Dai to be created. These three reasons are enough to ensure that Dai is continually created.