MoneroSilver.com now offers global service with Haven

Published on March 30, 2023.

Hello everyone,

MoneroSilver.com has made much progress recently:

* We simplified our product pricing and website layout.

* We automated the website's price updates, so our rates can be closer to spot.

* We improved shipping logistics with our suppliers.

...and today, we're happy to announce our latest development: Haven support!

The number-one question we have consistently received is "When will you support non-USA customers?". At this stage, shipping costs and customs logistics make it impossible for us to ship physical gold and silver bullion internationally. But we really want to find some way to serve the international market. Haven provides a solution to our problem.

About Haven:

Haven is a fork of Monero. It has all the same freedom and privacy features as Monero, but it also has something else: a set of stablecoins and synthetic assets called "xAssets", which can be converted between each other very efficiently with no counter-party. Here is a complete list of these stablecoins:

xUSD ─ An algorithmic stablecoin which Haven tries to peg to the value of the US Dollar.
xUSD is the most important item in this list because
all other Haven synthetic assets are defined in terms of xUSD.

xAG ─ A synthetic asset that perfectly tracks the value of silver.
If the spot price of real silver is $25 USD, then one xAG is worth 25 xUSD.
Just to be clear: You do not receive physical silver when buying xAG.

xAU ─ A synthetic asset that perfectly tracks the value of gold.
If the spot price of real gold is $2000 USD, then one xAU is worth 2000 xUSD.
Just to be clear: You do not receive physical gold when buying xAU.

xBTC ─ A synthetic asset that perfectly tracks the value of Bitcoin.
If the spot price of Bitcoin is $30k USD, then one xBTC is worth 30k xUSD.
Just to be clear: You do not receive real Bitcoin when buying xBTC.

xAUD xCHF xCNY xEUR xGBP ─ Synthetic assets that track other fiat currencies.

When xUSD trades below its $1 peg, all xAssets can be purchased at a discount via arbitrage.
When xUSD trades above its $1 peg, all xAssets can be sold at a premium via arbitrage.
In other words, xAssets are riding on the shoulders of xUSD, and xUSD derives its value from the ability of Haven's conversion mechanism to achieve the $1 peg.

A Summary of Haven's Operational History:

To understand Haven, you must first understand some recent events.

2020 to 2022:
* Haven operates successfully with xUSD at its $1 peg most of the time.

June 2022:
* Haven is attacked via price manipulation of 3rd party exchanges.
* The attacker manages to generate approximately 15 million xUSD.
* The conversion mechanism is paused to prevent an inflationary "death spiral".
* Since xUSD cannot be converted, it falls below the $1 peg.

January 2023:
* Haven conversions are re-enabled with a new economics model that is immune to
price manipulation attack.
* The new economics model has significantly stronger inflation protection...
* ...but also has a significantly weaker xUSD conversion mechanism.

Today (March 30, 2023):
* The Haven system has operated successfully for months without any "death spiral".
* All Haven xAsset features have been working great.
* The Haven developers are in a good position to make incremental improvements to
the health of the system.
* CakeWallet now supports Haven.
* xUSD remains detached from its peg due to illiquidity and selling pressure on
3rd party exchanges.
- This means that market selling pressure still overpowers Haven's
new xUSD conversion mechanism.
- There is approximately $200k USD of sub-$1 sell orders in the order books.
- At the time this is being written, the market value of xUSD is around $0.20.

Haven's Risks:

Before you invest in Haven's xAssets, you need to understand that there are some serious risks:

* The Haven project could fail and everything could go to zero.
* Anti-crypto governments might sanction the use of Haven.
* xUSD might not re-achieve the $1 peg for a long time ─ maybe years ─ maybe never!
* xUSD trading activity on 3rd party exchanges is very low, making it difficult to exit
the Haven ecosystem.

Taking those risks into consideration, Haven xAssets also bring opportunity ─ they enable you to buy "price trackers" of assets (gold, silver, Bitcoin) at deep discounts (currently 80% off). Your returns are multiplied by the performance of the underlying asset and xUSD. So for example, if you hold xAG while both silver and xUSD go up 30%, your net return would be a profit of 69% (1.3*1.3 = 1.69). On the other hand, if silver went up 30% while xUSD fell by 30%, your net return would be a loss of 9% (1.3*0.7 = 0.91). In other words, compared to real assets, Haven xAssets have higher risk and higher reward.

To put it simply: the rewards can be great ─ just don't invest money that you need back any time soon.

Why We're Optimistic About Haven's Future:

Despite the risks, the broken xUSD peg, and the low liquidity on exchanges, we are still optimistic about Haven's future, and we consider it a project worthy of support.

Privacy + Stablecoins: This combination is the "holy grail". Stablecoins attempt to solve price volatility. Privacy attempts to preserve freedom. The world needs this powerful combination now more than ever.

Trading without a counter-party: Unlike a normal exchange, which requires two people to perform a trade (a buyer and a seller), Haven can perform xAsset conversions with just a single person. This is a big deal because it allows Haven to side-step the liquidity "chicken or egg" problem that small exchanges are faced with (i.e. low-liquidity exchanges have trouble attracting liquidity), and it allows Haven to function smoothly even in hostile environments. You can convert xAssets with complete independence and in complete privacy. No one can know that you performed a conversion, and no one can stop you.

Already great for long-term investments: If you are willing to "permanently" keep your investments in the Haven ecosystem, then the current system is already a viable solution for long-term investments. Remember, you can send and receive xAssets just like any other cryptocurrency. That means that you can buy and sell things with xUSD or xAG or xBTC, so you don't necessarily need to exit the Haven ecosystem to make use of your investment value.

Inflationary "death spiral" has been solved: Since the upgrade in January 2023, the system inflation has been negligible. This is a monumental accomplishment, since no other algorithmic stablecoin system has managed to achive this. Haven is the leader in this difficult problem space.

System health can be improved step-by-step: Since the "death spiral" has been solved, time is on Haven's side. The system can be improved one step at a time, making sure that each of those steps is beneficial and well-tested. There are things that can be done to improve the xUSD conversions so it can overpower the market selling pressure. Things are on the right track.

$200k USD of selling pressure is not a lot: It will only take a couple thousand small purchases to overcome this selling pressure. YOU can have a significant impact in the restoration of the Haven system... and you can make money doing it.

15 million of "attack" xUSD is not a lot: Thanks to the quick and decisive action taken by Haven leadership, the June 2022 attack damage was limited to 15 million (instead of 15 billion) xUSD. Successful cryptocurrencies can have market caps in the $billions, so 15 million does not seem impossible to overcome. If Haven is successful, its growth will eventually make this amount seem like a minor speed-bump.

CakeWallet Support: Just recently (March 7, 2023), CakeWallet added support for the January version of Haven on Android. They are still working on the iOS version. CakeWallet also added the ability to swap XHV for other crypto coins like BTC and XMR. This means that Haven adoption will be significantly easier for new users, and it will be easier to overcome the current selling pressure.

The direction we'd like to see Haven go: It's great that Haven already supports silver, gold, and Bitcoin. But we'd like to see even more high-demand xAssets added. Demand for xAssets translates directly into strengh of the Haven ecosystem.

How MoneroSilver.com is Helping:

We believe in the Haven project and its leadership, and we want to help. Haven is creating something that the Monero community needs. They deserve our support. That's why MoneroSilver.com now offers buying and selling of silver bullion in both Monero and Haven xAssets. We will be providing liquidity for all sides of this market:
* You can buy Haven silver (xAG) and gold (xAU) with Monero (globally).
* You can sell Haven xAG/xAU for Monero (globally).
* You can buy physical silver bullion with Monero or Haven xAG/xAU (USA only).
* You can sell physical silver bullion for Monero or Haven xAG/xAU (USA only).

Thank you all!

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