Argon Network

Join us Friday, November 13th at 11:00 AM EST for an open AMA with Argon's two co-creators, @calebjclark and @blakebyrnes. The focus will be on the upcoming release of Argon Desktop v2.6. - NEW Market Stabilizers - Overhaul of Vaulting Dashboard - Overhaul of Mining Dashboard

One of our biggest economic releases to-date (Mainchain v1.5 and Desktop v2.5) is rolling out tomorrow afternoon. But first, our two founding engineers, @blakebyrnes and @calebjclark, are host a live AMA. Join us at 11 AM EST on our Discord community.

It’s hard to surpass a @natbrunell interview, and @RaphaZagury is clearly a brilliant guy. But this clip reveals one of the biggest blind spots in how we think about stablecoins. Tether — like every other fiat-backed stablecoin — does not hold its underlying value on-chain. The backing ultimately sits in banks, custodians, and other off-chain financial institutions. That means a fiat-backed stablecoin does not escape the banking system. It simply places another layer on top of it. If the underlying custodial and financial infrastructure fails, the stablecoin is exposed to the same failure. That distinction matters. Argon was designed around the premise that a stablecoin should be capable of surviving a complete collapse of the financial system. It should not depend on the system for its backing. This isn’t a dig at @natbrunell or @RaphaZagury. Both are doing brilliant work in their respective fields. The broader point is that we all have blind spots. We all accept certain assumptions as foundational until someone stops and asks what actually sits behind the curtain.

Our refreshed Liquid Locking for Bitcoin simulator is live. 15 years of Bitcoin history. What could Liquid Locking have meant for your portfolio? Run the numbers → llb.argon.network

A huge shout-out to one of the pioneers of algorithmic stablecoins: Basis. Their brilliant 2017 whitepaper, authored by @nadertheory, @jwaynechen, and @lzdiao, helped shape some of the early thinking at Argon. basis.io/basis_whitepaper_en… The central weakness of Basis’ design was its reliance on endogenous tokens to stabilize the coin. As many critics have pointed out in the years since, if confidence falls far enough, the assets meant to restore stability can instead accelerate a death spiral. Basis raised $133M from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley (@BainCapVC @GVteam @a16z @lightspeedvp @FoundationCap), but sadly, they never made it to launch. Blake and I started working full-time on Argon in 2018. We quickly realized an endogenous token was the wrong approach, but we couldn’t find a better design. Year after year, we toiled. For some reason, we never quit. Eight years of work brought us to a design built around an asset whose value exists independently of Argon. An asset that had been staring us in the face all along: Bitcoin. The dream that inspired Basis — and inspired us — lives on in Argon.