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Silicon Valley technology news this week (2025.1.20-1.25) includes: Trump signed a series of executive orders after taking office, covering many fields such as cryptocurrency, AI, electric vehicles; Zuckerberg said Meta will spend $65 billion this year to promote AI goals; Instagram and Facebook block posts from abortion pill providers; Wall Street banks are preparing to sell

milestone

Trump issues Trump coin and issues first crypto executive order

On January 20, the first day that Trump took office as President of the United States, the Meme coin "Trump" issued by him personally and the "Melania" coin issued by his wife Melania both experienced violent price fluctuations.

Trump Coin was issued on January 17 and began trading at an opening price of $0.1824. It rose by more than 15,000% within 12 hours, reaching a maximum of $75.35, with a fully diluted market value (FDV) of nearly $80 billion. On January 18, the market value of Trump Coin exceeded US$5 billion, and the transaction volume exceeded US$11 billion. On January 21, the price of Trump Coin plummeted, falling to around $35, a 53% drop from its highest point of $75.35.

Economists and some long-time cryptocurrency investors have warned that the digital currency, known as memecoin, could pose a danger to the financial system.

On January 23, Trump also issued the first encryption executive order. The executive order proposes to protect and promote the ability of citizens and the private sector to access and use public chains, revokes Executive Order No. 14067 "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets", and establishes the President's Digital Asset Market Working Group.

Trump unveils $50 billion AI plan

On January 21, 2025 local time, US President Trump announced an artificial intelligence infrastructure investment plan called "Stargate" at the White House. According to the plan, OpenAI, Japan's SoftBank Group and the United States' Oracle will jointly invest US$500 billion to build AI infrastructure in the United States.

The initial investment in the project is US$100 billion, with plans to expand to US$500 billion over the next four years. OpenAI will be responsible for the operation of "Stargate", SoftBank will assume financial responsibility, and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son will serve as project chairman. In addition to the three major investors mentioned above, Arm, Microsoft and NVIDIA will also participate in the project as initial technology partners. Trump said the project would "create over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately."

Musk, who strongly supported Trump in this election, believes that SoftBank’s funds are far less than US$100 billion. In addition, project implementation and investment returns are still faced with uncertainty.

Trump revokes Biden administration’s EV support policy

Among the series of executive orders signed by Trump on his first day in office, he also included the revocation of the electric vehicle support policy signed by the Biden administration in 2021. The order aims to ensure that by 2030, half of all new cars sold in the United States are electric.

Trump has frozen government funds for building electric vehicle charging stations that were originally allocated through the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act; and will also consider eliminating tax credits and subsidies for electric vehicles, arguing that these subsidies are "unfair" and cause market distortions for other technologies.

Additionally, Trump plans to repeal a waiver granted to California by the Environmental Protection Agency in December that allowed the state to stop selling gasoline-only vehicles by 2035. This provision has been adopted by 11 other states.

Global health fund seeks more private funding after US withdraws from WHO

On January 20, after taking office, Trump quickly announced that he would withdraw from the WHO and freeze international aid.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria told Reuters that it will request nearly 50% of additional funding from private entities such as philanthropic organizations and businesses when it launches a new round of financing later this year, totaling $2 billion.

The United States has historically been the largest donor to the fund, pledging $6 billion in the last round of financing. During Trump’s first term in office from 2016 to 2020, U.S. contributions were similar to previous administrations.

Company news

Zuckerberg says Meta will spend $65 billion this year to advance AI goals

On January 24, Zuckerberg said that Meta plans to invest US$60 billion to US$65 billion in artificial intelligence (AI)-related projects in 2025.

Meta will expand the size of its AI team and build a data center of more than 2 gigawatts, which is large enough to cover the computing power needs of a large part of Manhattan. It also plans to have more than 1.3 million graphics processing units (GPUs) by the end of 2025 and achieve approximately 1GW of computing power.

Zuckerberg expects Meta's AI assistant, available across all of its services, to serve more than 1 billion people by 2025, up from about 600 million monthly active users last year.

Meta's announcement comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle would form a company called Stargate to invest $500 billion in building artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States. Some analysts believe that Zuckerberg’s move is a signal to the market that he does not want Meta to lag behind in the AI ​​competition.

Oracle launches AI agents for sales professionals

Oracle announced on January 21, 2025, a series of new AI agents and generative AI capabilities designed to help sales teams manage customer relationships and sales processes more efficiently.

These capabilities are integrated in Oracle Fusion Cloud Sales, leveraging connected data from finance and supply chain to provide sales teams with personalized, contextual customer experiences.

Instagram and Facebook block and hide posts from abortion pill providers

Instagram and Facebook recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram has also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hidden them from appearing in searches and recommendations.

Abortion pill suppliers say the practice has intensified over the past two weeks and has been particularly evident over the past two days. Their account content (and in some cases, even their entire account) is no longer viewable on Instagram.

The practice has sparked controversy, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, making access to the abortion pill more difficult. U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren also expressed alarm at Meta's handling of abortion-related content on the platform and asked Meta to explain why it removed abortion-related posts.

However, Meta said it does allow the sharing of information about how to obtain the drug legally. Additionally, Meta acknowledges that there have been some issues in enforcing this policy and is working to correct these situations.

Meta to test ads on Threads in US and Japan

Meta Platforms (Meta) announced that it will test advertising on its social media platform Threads starting January 25, 2025.

The test will first be launched with some brands in the United States and Japan. Ads will appear as images in Threads' homepage information stream, placed between content posts by a small number of users.

Threads launches in July 2023 and aims to challenge Musk's X. Currently, Threads has more than 300 million monthly active users, including more than 100 million daily active users.

Meta emphasized that ads will be consistent with Threads’ post style and strive to make users feel relevant and interesting when seeing ads. Additionally, Meta will test Ad Inventory Filters, an AI-powered brand suitability control that allows advertisers to set the sensitivity level of content surrounding their ads.

Wall Street banks are preparing to sell up to $3 billion of X's debt

Wall Street banks are preparing to sell up to $3 billion in debt from X Company (formerly Twitter), the social media platform controlled by Elon Musk, according to people familiar with the matter.

The debt sale, led by Morgan Stanley and involving a group of banks including Bank of America and Barclays, is scheduled to start as soon as next week. Bankers have approached small groups of investors to assess their intentions to raise at least $250 million individually.

These banks have previously provided loans to Musk to help him complete the acquisition of Company X for $44 billion in 2022. The debt sale is an important step for the bank to resolve the financial burden it has faced since financing Musk's acquisition of Company X in 2022.

Previously, banks encountered difficulties in selling debt due to poor performance of Company X. However, Musk's recent increase in influence and his proximity to U.S. President Trump are believed to have helped improve Company X's financial prospects, prompting the debt sale.

Rivian says other automakers are learning about VW joint venture's technology

On January 24, Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s chief software officer and co-CEO of the joint venture, said that other automakers are actively engaging with Rivian and its joint venture with Volkswagen to obtain its advanced software and electrical architecture technology. Volkswagen invested $5.8 billion in the joint venture in November 2024, aiming to integrate Rivian's software technology into Volkswagen's future electric vehicles.

Rivian's technical advantage is that its electrical architecture requires fewer electronic control units and significantly less wiring, reducing vehicle weight and simplifying the manufacturing process. In addition, its software can be updated over the air just like a smartphone.

For now, Rivian's top priority is launching its small, low-priced SUV R2 and integrating related technology into Volkswagen's other brands. In the future, the joint venture may become an important partner for other automakers seeking technology cooperation.

General Motors recalls more than 2,000 Chevrolet Equinox electric vehicles

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on January 22 that General Motors is recalling approximately 2,890 2025 Chevrolet Equinox electric vehicles due to safety hazards in the adaptive cruise control system. The recall only affects 2025 Chevrolet all-wheel drive Equinox electric models that are not equipped with GM's Super Cruise system.

The main reason for the recall is that a software calibration error in the vehicle's braking system control module caused the adaptive cruise control function to fail to brake as intended. When adaptive cruise control is on, the vehicle may not be able to brake to slow down or stop, increasing the risk of a collision.

GM dealers will update the software calibration in the brake system control module of affected vehicles to ensure that the adaptive cruise control function can properly activate the braking system. General Motors will begin sending notification letters to vehicle owners on March 3, 2025.

Porsche confirms 2024 profit outlook on investor call

Porsche confirmed its profit outlook for 2024 during an investor call on January 22, 2025, predicting profit margins will remain at 14%-15%.

The company also pointed out that it will still face challenges in 2025. Porsche expects sales to decline in 2024, mainly because its fuel-powered Macan and 718 models will exit the EU market from the end of June 2024. In addition, the 911 models may face further supply chain issues.

In addition, Porsche is reducing its business presence in China and will provide more details during its annual results conference call on March 12. Despite these challenges, Porsche remains optimistic about its overall financial performance in 2024 and plans to adjust supply and demand through its "value over sales" strategy, especially in the Chinese market.

PayPal fined by New York over cybersecurity breach

On January 23, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced that PayPal would pay a $2 million civil penalty due to a cybersecurity breach that resulted in the disclosure of customers’ Social Security numbers.

The cause of the incident was that in December 2022, when PayPal modified the existing data flow to provide federal tax forms (IRS 1099-K forms) to more customers, customer data was leaked. Cybercriminals used "credential stuffing" techniques to gain access to forms containing sensitive information such as customer names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers through stolen usernames and passwords.

Bain Capital acquires Australia's Insignia Financial for $1.92 billion

In recent years, Australia's listed wealth managers have become attractive takeover targets for foreign fund managers. For example, in May 2024, KKR & Co acquired the wealth management and corporate trust business of Insignia's fellow company Perpetual for A$2.18 billion.

Founded in 1846, Insignia Financial is a 178-year-old wealth management company that provides financial advisory and asset management services. As of the end of September 2024, the company managed funds worth A$319.6 billion. However, the company posted a full-year statutory net loss after tax in August 2024 and suspended dividend payments.

At the end of December last year, Insignia Financial rejected a takeover bid from private equity firm Bain Capital, believing that the offer was not enough to meet the needs of its shareholders. Recently, Bain Capital raised its acquisition offer to A$3.07 billion (US$1.92 billion).

Investment and Financing

Lindus Health Completes $55 Million Series B Financing

Lindus Health is a clinical trial service provider dedicated to improving clinical trial efficiency through technological innovation. On January 23, 2025, the company announced the completion of a $55 million Series B financing round. The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from existing investors including Visionaries Club, Creandum, First Minute Capital and Seedcamp.

The funding will be used to further develop Lindus Health’s artificial intelligence technology and e-clinical platform Citrus™. The platform leverages AI and automation technologies to optimize all stages of clinical trials, including study design, data monitoring, biostatistical analysis, and patient recruitment. Lindus Health's goal is to make clinical trials faster, more reliable and more affordable through technological innovation.

Lindus Health calls itself the “anti-CRO” (Contract Research Organization) and aims to subvert the traditional clinical trial model. Lindus Health is able to achieve significant efficiency gains through its innovative business model and technology platform. Since its founding in 2021, Lindus Health has completed 42 end-to-end clinical trials, enrolling more than 36,000 patients.

Eleos completes US$60 million in Series C financing

Eleos Health is an innovative company focusing on digital mental health, providing users with mental health care services through personalized data measurement and analysis and voice AI technology.

On January 22, 2025, Eleos Health announced the completion of a US$60 million Series C financing. This round of financing was led by Greenfield Partners, with participation from F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads, Menlo Ventures, ION Group, Eight Roads Capital (Fidelity Asia), Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Union Tech Ventures and Centerstone Capital.

Since its establishment, Eleos Health has focused on artificial intelligence applications in the behavioral health field, using multimodal large language models (MM-LLMs) to process multiple data inputs and optimize clinical document processing and patient care. The company has more than 120 client institutions in more than 30 states in the United States, and is particularly outstanding in segments such as substance use disorder (SUD) treatment centers.

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What is NFT

The full name of NFT is non-fungible token. Chinese is usually translated as "non-fungible token" and is usually regarded as "digital asset".

"NFTs are tokens we use to represent ownership of unique items. NFTs allow us to tokenize items such as art, collectibles, and even real estate. They have only one official owner at a time and are protected by the Ethereum blockchain – no one can modify the ownership record or copy-paste a new one based on an existing NFT."

Scene one

The earliest successful NFT experiment: cryptopunks. A set of ten thousand pixel art characters.

Although these works can be viewed by anyone, on Ethereum it has a single owner. Some of these rare pieces trade for millions of dollars.

Scene 2

There has been a very ancient NFT in history, a famous work – "Every Day: The First 5000 Days"!

On March 11, 2021, this NFT artwork with a starting price of only US$100 was finally successfully sold at the Christie's auction house for a sky-high price of "US$69.3 million" (equivalent to approximately RMB 450 million). Not only did it significantly refresh the transaction record for a single digital artwork, it also almost single-handedly brought concepts such as "NFT" and "digital collections" to the public's attention.

The name of this work is: "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" ("Everydays: The First 5000 Days"). Its author is the famous American graphic designer and animator "Mike Winkelmann" (also known as Beeple).

As a top figure in the digital art world, Beeple's digital paintings are innovative, avant-garde and eye-catching. Not only have they attracted 1.8 million fans on social media, they have also collaborated with internationally renowned brands such as Louis Vuitton and Nike, as well as with entertainment stars such as Katy Perry and Childish Gambino.

From May 1, 2007 to the end of 2020, "Beeple will create and upload a new digital work every day" and name it "Everyday".

On February 16, 2021, after splicing 5,000 works into a huge 316MB JPG file, "Every Day: The First 5,000 Days" was born. In order to ensure the uniqueness of the work, Beeple also casts the digital collection in the Ethereum blockchain, which greatly protects the copyright of the work.

If a painting is an NFT, can an article be an NFT? What about a razor or a Rubik's Cube? "What exactly is NFT? Why does it have such huge value?"

"Non-fungible token" consists of two parts: non-fungible and token. Before analyzing non-fungible, let us first explain token. The token here refers to a record in the blockchain.

a little history

The concept of blockchain first appeared in Bitcoin. Bitcoin's white paper introduces the "chain of blocks" used to track and encrypt historical data. The concept of blockchain has also become popular on the Internet along with this idea.

Just like traditional cash, Bitcoin is fungible, in other words, we can make two Bitcoins interchangeable without changing their value. The Bitcoin network does not track each coin and assign them a unique identifier. Instead, Bitcoin tracks the number in each account and records each transaction.

Inspired by Bitcoin, other blockchain systems have expanded new functionality on top of it. Ethereum adds general computing capabilities based on the consensus model of the Bitcoin blockchain and is committed to becoming a world computer for "programmable money."

Ethereum has its own original token, Ether. In addition to storing value, Ethereum can also pay for computing costs in the form of gas fees. Ethereum, like Bitcoin, is fungible, but Ethereum supports users to create their own tokens in the form of smart contracts, and users can implement their own logic in smart contracts.

Smart Contracts: Smart contracts digitize an agreement by converting its terms into computer code that automatically executes when the terms of the contract are met.

In the early days, most smart contracts implemented tokens similar to Ethereum, but soon people tried to use unique tokens to represent data.

non-fungible

Compared with traditional currencies, each currency has its own unique code identification, but even with a unique code, two 100-yuan currencies can still be exchanged at equal value, so the unique code cannot be completely irreplaceable. If there is a RMB with a painting by Qi Baishi on it (painting on RMB is illegal, this is just to illustrate the problem), then the value of this RMB is different. You can exchange this RMB for anything of any value, as long as both parties to the transaction are willing.

In the same way, by allowing each token to contain arbitrary data, NFT becomes a medium for expressing creativity and can also be used as a transaction and accounting unit. The value of an NFT is highly dependent on the data it represents.

Because they are on the same network as digital currencies, NFTs benefit from the security guarantees of the blockchain and can use their accounts and tokens to complete transactions.

how to persist

A major function of Bitcoin is to allow all participants to achieve a consistent "state". For Bitcoin, "state" is the balance of each account, and for Ethereum, the shared state is the input and output of the smart contract. Because network users are distributed all over the world, it takes time to reach a consistent final state, and there will also be some rules to prevent users from cheating. But once the state is consistent, it becomes a historical record of the blockchain.

As new blocks are added to the blockchain, the cost of modifying earlier blocks becomes higher, and soon changing all historical blocks becomes impossible.

The durability and stability of the blockchain are just enough to ensure the value of NFT for a long time. As long as the blockchain itself operates normally, NFT data will not be lost. At the same time, by providing digital currency to reward operators to ensure the long-term existence of the network, the blockchain will survive for a long time.

Digital content of applicable scenarios for NFT

Currently, many content creators (such as self-media workers) publish their works to third-party platforms. The platform sells advertisements to the authors' fans to make money for the platform. The creators can get exposure to their works and a small amount of rewards. NFT has completely changed this matter. Creators do not need to hand over content ownership to the platform. When creators want to sell content, they receive real money that matches the value of their work.

game items

NFTs provide a record of ownership for in-game items. This allows players to truly gain ownership of game items while experiencing the game, and when the items appreciate in value, they can also be sold. Promotes the development of finance in the game.

domain name

In Ethereum, NFT provides a memorable domain name for your Ethereum address. For example, you can use sun.eth to represent your actual address of 23424jihixhufsd…. This is the same as when we use domain names instead of IP addresses.

With a domain name, it is convenient for us to conduct transactions in Ethereum. At the same time, a well-known domain name itself is also valuable.

physical items

The field of physical items is currently relatively slow to develop, but with cars, unique fashion items and NFT pegs, we can use NFT to represent our sole ownership of these items. At the same time, NFT can be used to trade and mortgage physical items.

Investments and Collateral

Loans can be obtained on Ethereum by staking NFTs.

The creator of an NFT can also create "shares" for it, allowing multiple people to jointly hold an NFT and thus become a "shareholder" of this NFT. Shareholders can have a say and post-transaction dividends. People with partial ownership of an NFT can manage the asset through a centralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

Websites with some practical applications: How to make NFTs as a developer

There are two commonly used standards for NFT: ERC-721 and ERC-1155. ERC-1155 was proposed later than ERC-721 and is basically compatible with the ERC-721 standard.

Recently, the EIP-2309 standard has been proposed.

As a developer, minting NFT is a relatively complicated process. You can try it by referring to the examples below.

https://ethereum.org/en/developers/tutorials/how-to-mint-an-nft/#main-content

https://nftschool.dev/tutorial/minting-service/#mint-an-nft

As a normal user

As an ordinary user, you can use third-party platforms to participate in the production, trading, and collection of NFT.

Typical foreign platforms

1.OpenSea

Platform introduction:

Opensea is the world's largest NFT trading platform and a decentralized exchange that provides peer-to-peer Ethereum Fungible Token (NFT) trading. The platform has the widest variety of NFT products, including encrypted artwork, game products, virtual land, digital copyrights, etc.

Release model:

Users have low entry barriers and can freely create and trade NFTs here. The platform supports selling mechanisms such as fixed price, price reduction, and maximum bid.

Representative products: CryptoPunk, CryptoKitties

Related fees:

The platform currently supports 241 cryptocurrencies as payment methods, and OpenSea will charge 2.5% of the transaction amount (including first or secondary sales) as service fees. Creators can freely set royalties within 10%, and OpenSea will transfer these NFT royalties to the payment address designated by the NFT creator every two weeks.

2.Rarible

Keywords: Token governance, cross-platform management

Platform introduction:

Rarible is a comprehensive NFT issuance and trading platform built on Ethereum to create and sell digital collections protected by the blockchain. The platform is an open source, non-custodial platform for users to mint, sell and create collectibles. Rarible supports various types of NFT transactions such as Ethereum ERC721 and ERC155 standard encrypted artwork, game props, domain name services, etc. The platform is integrated with Opensea to support cross-platform management.

Release model:

Any user can enter Rarible to create and display their own artwork. The platform supports fixed-price transactions and auction transactions. The platform issued the governance token RARI in 2020 to encourage users to participate in token governance and work review.

Representative products: BoredApeYachtClub, ArtBlocks

Related fees:

Platform revenue comes from a 2.5% transaction fee. NFT creators can set royalties to a maximum of 50%, and the platform is currently working on a cross-platform royalty plan.

21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Qiang reported from Beijing

In the past few months, AI has "bombed" the visual arts field many times, and it has not only been affected by designers who are under the "dark cloud of unemployment".

“I originally wanted to meet someone from Meitu Xiuxiu in Xiamen, but they said that the company was on the verge of survival because of AI, so I didn’t have time to meet.” In March this year, a screenshot of a WeChat chat about Meitu (01357.HK) attracted attention.

At the second Imaging Festival held by Meitu on June 19, Chen Jianyi, senior vice president and president of the imaging industry group of Meitu, laughed about the incident and admitted that the person mentioned in the screenshot was himself. "In the past six months, the team has been immersed in AI research and devoted itself to it, so many cooperations were not responded to in time."

This time, Meitu launched 7 AI products in one breath, including AI visual creation tool WHEE, oral broadcast video tool Kaimai, desktop AI video editing tool WinkStudio, Meitu Design Studio 2.0, digital human generation tool DreamAvatar, Meitu AI assistant RoboNeo, and Meitu visual large model MiracleVision.

For a long time, due to the user-ready nature, tool application advertising has a low monetization ceiling, and its business model is not optimistic. Meitu, which has strong tool attributes, has also made many attempts. From mobile phones, social networking, and even currency speculation, Meitu can be seen in almost every wave of trends. "After going around, we discovered that what Meitu is best at is actually tools." Wu Xinhong said.

Compared with the previous one, this AI wave may be more suitable for Meitu, which focuses on the imaging field, and the market response has been quite positive. On the day the AI ​​series products were released, Meitu's stock price soared 21%. Subsequently, the optimistic sentiment continued. As of the close of trading on June 21, Meitu's stock price had risen by nearly 40% that week.

Chasing the AI ​​Wave

The highlight of this imaging festival is undoubtedly MiracleVision, a large AI visual model released by Meitu.

"MiracleVision embodies a lot of our thinking about aesthetics and creative scenes." Wu Xinhong said that Meitu has integrated its long-term accumulated aesthetic cognition into the MiracleVision large visual model, and built an aesthetic evaluation system based on machine learning to add "aesthetic scores" to the model generation results, thereby continuously improving the model's understanding of aesthetics. In addition, MiracleVision visual model has a unique aesthetic creator ecology, with artists, designers and other professionals with profound aesthetic backgrounds participating in the construction of visual models.

Wu Xinhong emphasized that after the release of seven products, Meitu has advanced from life scenarios to productivity scenarios, and has gradually formed an AI product ecosystem composed of the bottom layer, middle layer and application layer.

MiracleVision's large visual model serves as the bottom layer, providing AI model capabilities for all Meitu products. In the middle layer, it provides a combination of Meitu AI open platform, Meitu creative platform, and Meitu AI assistant RoboNeo. The application layer innovates and explores in the fields of AI pictures, AI videos, AI design, and AI digital people, and realizes the aggregation of AI imaging services by Meitu Xiuxiu.

Meitu said that unlike other large models on the market, MiracleVision visual large models have strong visual expression and creative power, and reverse technological evolution from visual creation scenarios such as painting, design, film and television, photography, games, 3D, animation, etc., and are good at Asian portrait photography, national style and trend, commercial design and other generation directions.

"We have also accumulated imaging technology for more than ten years, but compared to before the outbreak of AIGC, if we want to create a very amazing function, we need to invest a lot of time and manpower, and the uncertainty is still high. Now the AI ​​technology based on large models allows us to quickly implement the idea and verify it, and it also brings very positive user feedback. Because the user is exposed to these new functions for the first time, he will have enough motivation to use it and even pay for it." Wu Xinhong said.

At the Image Festival, Wu Xinhong announced the latest subscription data. As of June 18, the number of Meitu VIP members reached 7.19 million. It is worth noting that in the 2022 financial report, as of December 2022, the number of Meitu VIP members was 5.6 million, and the number of members is growing rapidly.

In Wu Xinhong's view, a good visual large model needs to be supported by a good "model ecology", and this process is inseparable from the continuous participation of creators and developers. Meitu’s C-end user base is large enough, and the customer acquisition cost of cold start for large models is low, and the success of the product can be verified in a short time. Unlike other manufacturers, Meitu Large Model focuses on aesthetics (picture quality design, etc.). If it has to compete in the future, it will focus on aesthetics.

"For example, the AI ​​animation we launched in March is our world premiere. Users shoot a video of themselves and it can be transformed into an American comic or Japanese comic. Especially when you see the transformation process of your real-life image into animation, I believe it is very amazing at that moment, so innovations like this can greatly boost our subscription and single-purchase revenue." Wu Xinhong added.

productivity ambitions

"Meitu may have served more life scenes before, but now we see huge demand and commercialization opportunities in productivity scenes." Wu Xinhong mentioned it many times at this year's Image Festival.

Since 2020, Meitu’s apps such as Meitu Xiuxiu and Beauty Camera have begun to launch VIP subscription services. Image processing capabilities based on AI technology meet users' advanced needs for services such as picture beautification, photography, and video beautification. At the same time, Meitu has expanded its VIP subscription business from life scenarios to work scenarios to meet various needs such as personal marketing, event promotion, product display, and brand promotion.

Financial report data shows that Meitu's total revenue in 2022 is 2.085 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.2%. As of December 2022, Meitu's monthly active users have reached 243 million, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. Among them, the VIP subscription business has strong growth momentum, achieving revenue of 782 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 57.4%, surpassing the advertising business for the first time to become the largest source of revenue. In addition, SaaS and related business revenue increased by 1093.2% year-on-year to 463 million yuan, showing a rapid and stable growth trend.

At this year's Image Festival, Wu Xinhong said that in the past 15 years, Meitu's existing C-side market has been almost fully explored, and user growth is basically in a relatively stable state. "Meitu's current subscription penetration rate is about 2%. There is actually quite a lot of room for improvement in this number. So how to find incremental growth among existing users? The opportunity lies in productivity tools."

Chen Jianyi added that in the field of imaging, the underlying technology of the C-side and the B-side is the same. Users on the C-side cut out pictures and change backgrounds for portraits. The same logic is used on the B-side, but the scenes are richer and the processing objects are all kinds of commodities, helping merchants to generate promotional materials with one click. In this case, whether it is the designer's understanding of the effect or the adaptation of the promotional style, it is completely different from the C-side ideas, requiring a lot of refined adaptation work.

"For Meitu, this is a key plan for the next ten years. The space is very large, and the entire team is very excited and motivated." Chen Jianyi also talked about the previous disturbance of foreign software bans on domestic companies, and said that from a longer-term perspective, Meitu will gradually extend its tentacles into the field of professional design software.

In March 2022, the cloud design collaboration tool Figma blocked DJI’s corporate account. This sudden ban shocked the design industry. Figma stated in an email to DJI that since DJI was named in the sanctions list issued by the United States, which prohibits providing software services to the other party, Figma cannot continue to provide it with access to software and has frozen DJI's account.

1. About index

1】Index array

Suppose you have a collection of blog posts, where each document represents an article. Each post has a "comments" field, which is an array where each element is a subdocument of a comment. If you want to find the most recent blog post with the most comments, you can index on the "date" key of the nested "comments" array in the blog post collection:

db.blog.createIndex({"comments.date": 1}})

Creating an index into an array actually creates an index entry for each element of the array, so if an article has 20 comments, then it has 20 index entries. Therefore, array indexes are more expensive than single-value indexes: for a single insert, update, or delete, every array entry may need to be updated (there may be thousands of index entries)

Unlike index objects, you cannot index an entire array as a single entity: indexing an array actually indexes each element in the array, not the array itself.

Indexing into an array does not contain any positional information: array indexing cannot be used to find an array element at a specific position, for example: "comments.4"

In a few special cases, a specific array entry can be indexed, such as:

db.blog.createIndex({"comments.10.votes": 1}})

However, this index is only useful if it matches exactly the 11th array element

There can be at most one array field in an index. This is to avoid an explosion of index entries in a multikey index: every possible pair of elements has to be indexed, resulting in "n*m" index entries per document. Suppose there is an index on {"x":1, "Y":1}:

//x是一个数组————这是合法的
db.multi.insert({"x" : [1,2,3], "y" : 1})
//y是一个数组————这是合法的
db.multi.insert({"x" : 1, "y" : [1,2,3]})
//x和y都是数组————这是非法的！
db.multi.insert({"x" : [1,2,3], "y" : [4,5,6]})

If MongoDB were to create an index for the last example above, it would have to create this many index entries:

{"x" : 1, "y" : 4}、{"x" : 1, "y" : 5}、{"x" : 1, "y" : 6}
{"x" : 2, "y" : 4}、{"x" : 2, "y" : 5}、{"x" : 2, "y" : 6}
{"x" : 3, "y" : 4}、{"x" : 3, "y" : 5}、{"x" : 3, "y" : 6}

Even though these arrays only have 3 elements.

2】Multi-key index

For a key of an index, if the key is an array in a document, then the index will be marked as a multikey index. You can see whether an index is a multikey index from the output of explain(): If a multikey index is used, the value of the "isMultikey" field is true. As long as an index is marked as a multikey index, it can no longer become a non-multikey index, even if all documents with this field as an array are deleted from the collection. The only way to restore a multikey index to a non-multikey index is to drop and re-create the index.

Multikey indexes may be slower than non-multikey indexes. There may be multiple index entries pointing to the same document, so MongoDB must first remove duplicate content when returning the result set.

2. Operations on single-value arrays

1】Query

1. Operator: $all

If you need to match an array by multiple elements, use "$all". This will match a set of elements. For example, suppose you create a collection with 3 elements

db.food.insert({"_id" : 1, "fruit": ["apple", "banana", "peach"]})
db.food.insert({"_id" : 2, "fruit": ["apple", "kumquat", "orange"]})
db.food.insert({"_id" : 3, "fruit": ["cherry", "banana", "apple"]})

To find documents that contain both "apple" and "banana", you can use "$all" to query:

db.food.find({"fruit": {"$all": ["apple", "banana"]}})
---查询结果
db.food.insert({"_id" : 1, "fruit": ["apple", "banana", "peach"]})
db.food.insert({"_id" : 3, "fruit": ["cherry", "banana", "apple"]})

The order here doesn't matter. Note that "banana" comes before "apple" in the second result. Using "$all" on an array with only one element is the same as not using "$all".

It is also possible to use the entire array for an exact match. However, exact matching does not work well for missing elements or redundant elements. For example, the following method will match the first document before:

db.food.find({"fruit": ["apple", "banana", "peach"]})

But the following won't match:

db.food.find({"fruit": ["apple", "banana"]})

This one won't match either:

db.food.find({"fruit": ["banana", "apple", "peach"]})

If you want to query the element at a specific position in the array, you need to use the key.index syntax to specify the index:

db.food.find({"fruit.2": "peach"]})

2. Operator: $size

"$size" is also very useful for querying arrays. As the name suggests, you can use it to query arrays of a specific length. For example:

db.food.find({"fruit": {"$size": 1}})

Getting documents within a range of lengths is a common query. "$size" cannot be combined with other query conditions (such as $lte), but such queries can be implemented by adding a "size" key to the document. In this way, each time an element is added to the specified array, the value of "size" is also increased. For example, this original update:

db.food.update(criteria, {"$push": {"$fruit": "strawberry"}})

It will become like this:

db.food.update(criteria, {"$push": {"$fruit": "strawberry"}, "$inc": {"size": 1}})

The auto-increment operation is very fast, so the impact on performance is minimal. After the document is stored in this way, it can be queried as follows:

db.food.find({"size": {"$gt": 3}})

Unfortunately, this technique cannot be used with the "$addToSet" operator.

3. Operator: $slice

The "$slice" operator returns a subset of array elements that match a key.

For example, suppose we have a blog post document and we want to return the first 10 comments. We can do this:

db.blog.posts.findOne(criteria, {"comments": {"$slice": 10}})

You can also return the last 10 comments, just use -10 in the query conditions.

db.blog.posts.findOne(criteria, {"comments": {"$slice": -10}})

"$slice" can also specify an offset value and the number of elements you want to return, to return some result at the middle position of the element collection:

db.blog.posts.findOne(criteria, {"comments": {"$slice": [23, 10]}})

This operation will skip the first 23 elements and return the 24th to 33rd elements. If the array does not have 33 elements, all elements after 23 elements are returned.

2】New

If the array already exists, "$push" will add an element to the end of the existing array, if not, create a new array. for example:

db.food.update(criteria, {"$push": {"$fruit": "strawberry"}})

This relatively simple form of "$push" can also be applied to some more complex array operations. Using the "$each" sub-operator, multiple values ​​can be added with a single "$push" operation.

db.food.update({"_id" : 3}, {"$push": {"fruit" : {"$each" : ["apricot", "grape"]}}})

If you want the maximum length of the array to be fixed, you can use "$slice" and "$push" together to ensure that the array will not exceed the set maximum length. This actually results in an array containing at most N elements:

db.food.update({"_id" : 3}, {"$push": {"fruit" : {"$each" : ["apricot", "grape"], "$slice": -10} } })

This example will limit the array to contain only the last 10 elements added. The value of "$slice" must be a negative integer.

If the number of elements in the array is less than 10 (after "$push"), then all elements will be retained. If the number of elements in the array is greater than 10, then only the last 10 elements will be retained. Therefore, "$slice" can be used to create a queue in the document.

Finally, you can use "$sort" before cleaning elements that require cleaning whenever adding sub-objects to the array, for example:

db.movies.update({"genre" :  "horror"}, {
	"$push": {
		"top10" : {
			"$each": [
				{"name": "Nightmare on Elm street", "rating": 5.5},
				{"name": "Saw", "rating": 4.3}
			],
			"$slice": -10,
			"$sort": {"rating": -1}
		} 
	} 
})

This will sort all the objects in the array based on the value of the "rating" field and keep the top 10. Note that "$slice" or "$sort" cannot be used with "$push", and "$each" must be used.

If you use an array as a data set to ensure that the elements in the array are not repeated, you can use "$addToSet" to achieve this, such as:

db.food.update({"_id" : 3}, {"$addToSet": {"fruit" : "apricot"}})

Combining "$addToSet" and "$each" can add multiple different values, for example:

db.food.update({"_id" : 3}, { "$addToSet": { "fruit" : { "$each" : ["apricot", "grape"] } } })

3】Modify

If the array has multiple values ​​and we only want to operate on part of them, some tricks are needed. There are two ways to manipulate values ​​in an array, through positional or positioning operators ("#34;)

Modify the array by subscripting, such as:

db.blog.update({"post" : "postId_1001"}, { "$inc": {"comments.0.votes": 1} })

But in many cases, the index of the array to be modified cannot be known without querying the document in advance. In order to overcome this difficulty, MongoDB provides the positioning operator "#34;", which is used to locate the array elements that have been matched by the query document and update them. For example:

db.blog.update({"comments.author" : "John"}, { "$set": {"comments.$.author": "Jim"} })

4】Delete

There are several ways to remove elements from an array. If you view the array as a queue or stack, you can use "$pop". This modifier can delete elements from either end of the array. {"$pop": {"key": 1}} deletes an element from the end of the array, {"$pop": {"key": -1}} deletes it from the head.

Sometimes you need to delete elements based on specific conditions, not just based on the element's position. In this case, you can use "$pull". For example:

db.food.update({"_id" : 3}, {"$pull": {"fruit" : "apricot"}})

"$pull" will delete all matching documents, not just one. pair array

1 ,1, 2, 1

Executing pull 1 results in an array with only one element.

3. Operations on embedded document arrays

demo order data:

{ 
    "total_goods_num" : 3, 
    "goods" : [
        {
            "amount" : 3, 
            "goods_code" : "100009464821", 
            "price" : { "$numberDecimal" : "9999.00" }, 
            "wait_num" : NumberInt(3), 
            "goods_id" : "1007"
        }, 
        {
            "amount" : 4, 
            "goods_code" : "100016079918", 
            "price" : { "$numberDecimal" : "5899.59" }, 
            "wait_num" : NumberInt(4), 
            "goods_id" : "1006"
        }, 
        {
            "amount" : 5, 
            "goods_code" : "100008699547", 
            "price" : { "$numberDecimal" : "4798.37" }, 
            "wait_num" : NumberInt(5), 
            "goods_id" : "1005"
        }
    ], 
    "bill_no" : "D20210712174", 
    "address" : {
        "province" : "安徽省", 
        "city" : "", 
		"area" : "", 
        "detail" : ""
    }, 
    "bill_status" : "1", 
    "pay_time" : ISODate("2022-10-05T03:19:34.506+0000"), 
    "total_money" : { "$numberDecimal" : "15496.33000" }, 
}

1】Query

1. Directly use nested field query

For such matching results, as long as there is data containing the query conditions in the data group, the document data will be returned.

db.getCollection("bill").find({ 'goods.goods_code': "100009464821" })

2. Only return matching nested array data

2.1: You can use the $elemMatch operator (supported from mongodb 2.2)

2.2: You can use the $ operator (supported from mongodb 2.2)

---- 使用$elemMatch操作符
db.bill.find(
{
   'goods.goods_code': "100009464821" 
},
{
    "goods": {$elemMatch:{"goods_code":"100009464821"}}
}
)
---- 使用$操作符
db.bill.find({'goods.goods_code': "100009464821"}, {_id: 0, 'goods.#39;: 1});

The above two operators have this official description: the $elemMatch projection returns only the first matching element from the array. That is, only the first matched data element will be returned. (Operator description:

https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/operator/projection/elemMatch/#proj._S_elemMatch)

3. Use $filter to filter the array:

3.1: Only filter the main object field in $match

3.2: Put the sub-object filter conditions in $project and filter through "$filter"

3.3: If there is a query with an array field in $match, when the array does not have data that meets the conditions, the result set will not return any document information. When the array filter is placed in $project and processed by $filter, the document can be returned, and the array key that does not meet the conditions is marked with an empty array.

db.erp_sales_order.aggregate([
 {
	"$match": {
		"$and": [
			{
			"order_id": "orde202209141279id"
			}
		]
	}
 },
 {
	"$project": {
		"perpetual_order": 1,
		"contract_code": 1,
		"erp_sales_order_product": {
			"$filter": {
				"input": "$erp_sales_order_product",
				"as": "erp_sales_order_product",
				"cond": {
					"$or": [
						 {
							"$eq": [
								"$erp_sales_order_product.product_detail_id",
								"espdi20220914331"
							]
						}
					]
				}
			}
		}
	}
 }
])

Compared with $elemMatch and $, $filter will return all matched array data. Furthermore, document data that does not meet the criteria are excluded. In addition, if there are no matching elements in the array, an empty array will be returned, retaining the returned keys, while $elemMatch and $ will not return keys. For example, the results of the above query may be as follows:

{ 
    "_id" : ObjectId("63218dcd768a5a421db1bfcd"), 
    "perpetual_order" : "0", 
    "contract_code" : "SCON2022081454", 
    "erp_sales_order_product" : []
}
erp_sales_order_product 没有符合条件的数据，仍然返回键

2】Modify

1. Use $ to update the array

1.1: The $ operator will only match the first modified document

db.bill.update(
{
    "bill_no" : "D20210623173",
    "goods.amount":  {'$gte':4 , '$lte':5}
}, 
{
"$set": {"goods.$.wait_num": 56} 
}
)

According to the query of the above statement, there are 2 pieces of data that meet the conditions of "goods.amount", but after execution, only the first document data will be updated (the document of "goods_id" : "1006")

2. Use arrayFilters to update the array

2.1: Set arrayFilters to modify one or more elements in a nested array

2.2: The "$" in 'goods.$.wait_num', where "tt" is equivalent to giving an alias to the element, can be any string

2.3: Based on 2.2, the filtering operation in arrayFilters must match the alias string, such as: 'tt.amount', otherwise the modification will fail.

db.bill.updateMany(
{
    "bill_no" : "D20210623173"
},
{
    '$set': {
        'goods.$[tt].wait_num': 36
    }
},
{
	arrayFilters: [
		{'tt.amount': {'$gte':4 , '$lte':5}}
	]
}
)

Suppose the above execution statement is adjusted as follows:

db.bill.updateMany(
{
    "bill_no" : "D20210623173"
},
{
    '$set': {
        'goods.$[tt].wait_num': 6
    }
},
{
	arrayFilters: [
		{'elem.amount': {'$gte':4 , '$lte':5}}
	]
}
)

After execution, there will be an error similar to the following:

2022-10-05T11:46:26.597+0800 E QUERY    [js] WriteError: No array filter found for identifier 'tt' in path 'goods.$[tt].wait_num' :
WriteError({
	"index" : 0,
	"code" : 2,
	"errmsg" : "No array filter found for identifier 'tt' in path 'goods.$[tt].wait_num'",
	"op" : {
		"q" : {
			"bill_no" : "D20210623173"
		},
		"u" : {
			"$set" : {
				"goods.$[tt].wait_num" : 6
			}
		},
		"multi" : true,
		"upsert" : false,
		"arrayFilters" : [
			{
				"elem.amount" : {
					"$gte" : 4,
					"$lte" : 5
				}
			}
		]
	}
})

3】Delete

3.1: Using $pull operator

db.bill.update(
{
    "bill_no" : "D20210623173"
}, 
{
"$pull": {"goods": { "amount":  {'$gte':4 , '$lte':5} }} 
}
)

For web browsers, the several changes in button controls are a very familiar mechanism: Normal, Hover and Archive are the three effects that are easiest to feel when browsing with a mouse. They are the normal state of the button, the effect of the mouse cursor moving above, and the effect of clicking the button.

There is another effect we call Focus. Focus mainly refers to the state displayed by the targeted control when you use the keyboard's Tab key to "aim" at the controls on the web page. Although the mouse is now the main device for operating computers, in some cases, such as when filling out a form, it is much smoother for users to directly use the keyboard's Tab to switch input fields than to constantly operate back and forth between the mouse and keyboard. Therefore, in form system designs that focus on user experience, special attention will be paid to the Focus effect of the input box:

The most common interactive effect on web pages: Hover

In web pages, the Hover effect is a commonly used effect. In addition to effectively providing users with information such as "I am currently targeting this button with my mouse" and "This may be an interactive control", the Hover effect is often used as a way to provide a lot of additional information: For example, when browsing Dribble, what we usually see are pictures of works, and information such as the name and description of the work are designed in the Hover effect:

And the most common prompt: when the user is unclear about the function of the button, Hover can prompt the user for the function description of the button without changing the original layout:

Reasonable arrangement of Hover can make the layout design more concise. Many texts and descriptions that easily cause clutter in the layout can temporarily disappear on the layout, but the necessary information can be provided to users at the right time.

However, on a touch screen, Hover becomes difficult to move

Different from desktop computer operating systems, touch screen devices do not have a mouse cursor due to their operational characteristics. Therefore, the operation is to use a finger or stylus to directly click on the sensor panel. The actions that the user can perform are nothing more than: single click, double click, long press, and sliding in various directions (multi-finger gestures are special actions of some systems, so they are not discussed here).

For example, the control of the App icon in the iOS system is designed to launch the App with a single click, and delete or move it by pressing and holding:

Another common touch operation mode is the familiar pull-down refresh function in iOS systems. The single-finger sliding downward gesture replaces the traditional Refresh button:

Therefore, when developing the app, designers take into account the characteristics of the device itself and must change the design for the operation of the touch system. For example, Plant Nanny has designed a button that must be pressed and held for 2 seconds to complete the task: on the one hand, it avoids accidental touches, and on the other hand, it can be used with sound effects during these 2 seconds to create a "drinking water" feeling.

How to achieve the Hover effect in touch devices?

Since touch devices have completely different operating characteristics, and the proportion of users using touch devices to browse information is increasing, many websites have to consider how to adjust to the needs of touch device browsing:

Give up the Hover effect and use the device detection of the browser to provide different layout arrangements.

For example, Behance’s web version and mobile app show different layout configurations.

Click once to trigger the hover effect, and click again to trigger the click effect.

For example, the website Grids also uses a design where the title and information will be displayed only when the mouse is hovered. When browsing with a touch device, the mechanism automatically changes to display the Hover effect when pressed for the first time, and the actual click action is performed when pressed a second time:

Another similar approach is the purchase button in the App Store, which uses a two-stage button to prompt the user for "more additional information." For example, it originally displays the price of the App. When the user clicks once, the appearance of the button changes and the description changes to the actual action that will be performed after pressing it again (purchase and download and installation). Of course, it also has a two-stage button design that prevents users from accidentally touching the app and purchasing the app.

I don’t know if it is for the sake of design consistency. Although accidental button presses are less obvious on the desktop, in fact, the OSX desktop version of App Stroe also designed this two-stage button, but iTunes 11 did not do this. Maybe it will be unified in the next version.

Use long press and slide to simulate the passing of the mouse cursor

However, the learning cost of this method is high: Generally, touch screen users are not familiar with this UI operation method. Moreover, when browsing the full page, it is quite laborious for the user to constantly press the touch screen and slide the whole screen. Fingers can also easily block the line of sight, which in turn blocks the information that is intended to be displayed to the user.

Therefore, this kind of long-press and sliding operation method is mostly used in games, and is mostly used to control a certain area (such as Angry Bird, Fruit Ninja and other motion-sensing games, or games such as Minigore that simulate traditional joysticks, etc.).

Provides special functions to simulate the effects of a mouse

Although touch devices do not have a mouse cursor, you can actually use a laptop to simulate a touchpad to simulate the effect of a mouse cursor. For example, the browser Puffin provides a "virtual touch pad" function to simulate the existence of a mouse cursor. But there are still shortcomings: the design of the virtual touch panel seriously affects the intuitiveness and smoothness of the touch device experience.

Browsing methods on different browsing devices are different, so it is natural to take various situations into consideration when designing. How to arrange the Hover effect on such a simple web page on a touch device? Is it to change the layout method so that Hover information can be displayed directly? Will using two-stage clicks affect the user's browsing experience? Or maybe the display information of Hover is not important at all, so would it be better to discard it directly?

There is no perfect solution that can be applied to all designs. When designing, everyone still has to choose the most appropriate solution for the product based on the characteristics of their own product. "Touch devices may not necessarily change the world, but they will change some designs."

What is Tether (USDT)? Tether is a cryptocurrency pegged to legal currencies (such as the US dollar) and belongs to the stablecoin category. It is said that each USDT is supported by 1 US dollar or equivalent assets. It aims to combine the transaction efficiency of cryptocurrency with the stability of legal currencies. We will introduce it in detail below.

In the cryptocurrency space, Tether (USDT) is one of the most widely used stablecoins, maintaining price stability by being pegged to the U.S. dollar. This article will take an in-depth look at Tether’s mechanics, uses, controversies, and its place in the global cryptocurrency market.

1. What is Tether (USDT)?

Tether is a cryptocurrency pegged to a fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar, and falls under the stablecoin category. It is said that each USDT is backed by 1 US dollar or its equivalent, aiming to combine the transaction efficiency of cryptocurrency with the stability of fiat currency.

Main features:

2. How does Tether work?

Tether Limited claims that for every USDT issued, it will reserve an asset of equal value, such as cash, short-term bonds or commercial paper. This system ensures that the price of USDT remains stable and remains pegged 1:1 to the US dollar.

Simple mechanism:

3. What are the use cases for Tether? 4. Controversy surrounding Tether

Although USDT is widely used, its transparency and reserve backing still face scrutiny.

Main disputes:

In recent years, however, Tether has begun publishing regular reserve reports and hiring third-party auditing firms to verify its reserves, such as BDO Italia.

5. Market value ranking of Tether and other stablecoins stablecoin pegged mechanism (June 2025) Audit transparency

USDT

Fiat currency support

First

partial transparency

USDC

Fiat currency support

second

High transparency (round)

Cryptocurrency support

third

Decentralization and on-chain transparency

Tether remains the world’s largest stablecoin by trading volume, accounting for more than 50% of the total stablecoin circulation.

6. Tether’s compliance and future

In response to growing global regulatory pressure, Tether has been strengthening compliance measures:

Going forward, Tether will further expand its capabilities as a cross-border digital payments and settlement tool.

7. Conclusion

Tether (USDT) is the most widely used stablecoin in the world and an important value anchor in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Despite the controversy, Tether continues to strengthen its compliance and transparency to meet the changing needs of the digital financial world.

This concludes this article about what is Tether (USDT) currency? Comprehensive Guide to USDT (2025). For more comprehensive introduction to USDT currency, please search Script House’s previous articles or continue to browse the relevant articles below. I hope you will support Script House in the future!

Uncle Wen of Zhonglian, let me solve your problem.

Interpret the truth with wisdom and let justice illuminate the world

Trust is the premise, understanding is the key, and payment is respect.

————————————————

For everyone who is new to the currency circle, whether they are speculating or doing something else, the first currency that 99% of people will come into contact with is USDT. USDT (Tether) is familiar to people in the currency circle, but it is very unfamiliar to novices who are new to the currency circle. Today, Uncle Wen will talk about USDT (Tether Coin) with newcomers who are new to the currency circle or want to enter the currency circle.

There are currently a variety of stable coins on the market such as USDC, DAI, TUSD, FDUSD, etc. USDT is one of the stable coins issued by TEDA based on blockchain technology. Its English name is: Tether, its token number is USDT, and its Chinese name is TEDA Coin. Its value is anchored to the US dollar 1USDT = 1USD (US dollar).

USDT is the largest stable currency in circulation on the market.

TEDA officially claims that it will use equivalent U.S. dollars as guarantee and provide a service in which 1 USDT can be exchanged for 1 U.S. dollar. What is the purpose of this? Before the emergence of stable coins, all early currency pairs would be affected by bilateral exchange rates when conducting transactions. For example, the price of Ripple at that time was anchored by Bitcoin. At that time, Bitcoin had the largest trading volume and the highest market value. However, the price of Bitcoin fluctuated greatly and was not suitable as an anchored currency. Therefore, stablecoins were born, which solved the problem of bilateral exchange rates.

As long as you change to a stable currency, you can not be affected by the rise and fall of the market. This has a very obvious hedging effect on funds and has gradually become a rigid demand in the market. When you use legal currency to buy official USDT, your legal currency will be automatically converted into US dollars and deposited in the official account. The number of US dollars stored in this account represents how much USDT is circulating in the market. TEDA reserves reserves at a ratio of 1:1. For every USDT issued, there will be 1 more US dollar in the official account. This is why USDT is able to maintain the basis of stable prices.

On the contrary, when the user converts USDT into US dollars, the official will simultaneously destroy the equivalent USDT to ensure that the reserve fund of the official account is consistent with the circulation. In order to improve transparency, on the official website of Tether, you can check the latest official US dollar reserve amount. Because it is guaranteed by US dollars, most exchanges will support USDT as a pricing trading pair!

Because 1USDT = 1USD (U.S. dollar), the price of USDT will also be affected by the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar. Recently, the price of USDT has dropped from more than 7 yuan to more than 6 yuan. This is because the Federal Reserve has begun to cut interest rates, and the number of U.S. dollars circulating in the market has increased, resulting in the depreciation of the U.S. dollar. The price fluctuations of USDT caused by interest rate increases and decreases in this normal currency cycle are normal.

The sharp decline in USDT must be due to the occurrence of some kind of unexpected event that caused USDT and USD to become unanchored, resulting in a panic, which led to a sharp decline in local or global USDT prices!

In essence, it is the spread of panic that leads to an imbalance in the supply and demand relationship of USDT in the market.

The price of USDT has experienced several price dives in history, and TEDA has experienced several crises of trust. It was accused of insufficient reserve funds, which caused the price of USDT to become seriously unanchored in a short period of time and the price fell sharply, but it quickly recovered.

In 2020, an exchange issued an announcement saying that some of the company's private key managers were cooperating with the public security agency's investigation. They were currently out of contact, unable to complete authorization, and suspended currency withdrawals, causing market panic. Major merchants and retail investors sold USDT in large quantities, resulting in a sharp plunge in the price of USDT outside the exchange. The negative premium of USDT in the exchange was serious, and it took several weeks to recover.

Although there have been many crises of trust, as of October 2024, USDT has a market value of US$120 billion, ranking third in the crypto market by market value, second only to Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is still the stablecoin with the largest market share.

The OTC premium of USDT is the ratio of the OTC price to the US dollar. Excessive digital asset purchase demand will often make this indicator higher than the fair value of 100%, that is, the demand is excessively greater than the supply, causing the price to be higher than the normal price range for a short or long period of time, which is called a positive premium.

On the contrary, when the demand in the crypto market is low, when the supply is strong, and the supply is greater than the demand, a lower bid price will cause the price to be lower than the fair value of 100%, which will result in a lower bid price, which is a negative premium.

According to the rules of the cryptocurrency market, generally the OTC premium of USDT in a bull market is a positive premium. At this time, funds are rushing to enter the market and the demand is large. On the contrary, in a bear market, USDT prices generally have a negative premium. Of course, this is not entirely the case. The outbreak of local market conditions will also cause positive and negative premiums of USDT in the short term.

For newcomers to understand this rule and apply it in practice, you can act according to this logic when to sell and when to buy the U in your hand, which will also help save your own currency holding costs.

I am Uncle Wen. I follow the currency merchant firm and focus on the laws and regulations of the cryptocurrency circle, judicial freezing of bank cards, disciplinary appeals for two cards, currency merchant OTC, safe U-exit channels, etc.

15. Visual ME: http://shijue.me/

16. Duitang.com: http://www.duitang.com/

foreign:

1. Gratisography:

http://www.gratisography.com/

2. Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/

3. Dreamstime:

https://www.dreamstime.com/

4. Life Of Pix: http://www.lifeofpix.com/

5. Free Digital Photos:

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

6. IM Creator:

http://www.imcreator.com/free (need to circumvent the firewall)

7. Free Photos Bank:

http://www.freephotosbank.com/

8. Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/ (Chinese version)

9. PicJumbo: https://picjumbo.com/

10. Pickupimage: http://pickupimage.com/

11. Canva: https://www.canva.com/

12. 500px: https://500px.com/

13. Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/

14. Illusion Magazine:

http://illusion.scene360.com/

15. 9GAG: http://9gag.com/

Dynamic picture website:

1. GIF cool:

http://gifcool.lofter.com/

2. Kotaiguchi-gif:

http://kotaiguchi-gif.tumblr.com/ (need to circumvent the wall)

3. Rafael-varona:

http://www.rafael-varona.com/

4. Golden Wolf: http://goldenwolf.tv/

5. Julian Glander: http://glander.co/

6. Gifparanoia:

http://www.gifparanoia.org/

7. Rafael-varona:

https://www.behance.net/rafaelvarona

4. WeChat graphics and text typesetting tools

Good article layout can give readers a good reading experience and increase users’ desire to forward and share. The choice of typesetting tools is very important. It should be precise rather than too many. Getting used to and familiar with using typesetting tools can improve typesetting efficiency.

The ones recommended below are not good or bad. Only the typesetting tools that suit you are the best typesetting tools.

1. Typesetting: http://www.ipaiban.com/

2. Xiumi WeChat graphic and text typesetting tool: http://xiumi.us/#/

3. 135 WeChat Editor: http://www.135editor.com/

4. 96 WeChat Editor: http://bj.96weixin.com/

5. Yead WeChat editor: http://wxedit.yead.net/

6. Little Ant WeChat Editor: http://www.xmyeditor.com/

7. 91 WeChat Editor: http://bj.91join.com/

8. WeChat online editor: http://wx.bzrw.net/

9. 005 WeChat editor: http://bj.weixin005.com/

10. Music arrangement graphic and text editing tool: http://pb.ishangtong.com/

11. Beauty editor:

http://www.imeibian.com/main.html

12. Tianxing WeChat Editor: http://tx.huceo.com/

13. Xiudodo graphic editor: http://xiudodo.com/

14. Xiaoyi WeChat Editor: http://xiaoyi.e7wei.cn/

15. WeChat Circle Typesetting Assistant:

http://www.weixinquanquan.com/wxeditor

5. Short link generation tool

Compress the original long address into a short link with fewer letters. This conversion helps save space, facilitates storage, and is more concise and beautiful.

The following five tools can generate short connections and support customized short connections:

1. Sina Weibo short link generator:

http://www.surl.sinaapp.com/

2. Webmaster Tools:

http://tool.chinaz.com/tools/dwz.aspx

3. T.IM short URL/short link generator: http://t.im/

4. Baidu short URL: http://www.dwz.cn/

5. I typesetting short link generator: http://xhr.so/

6. H5 production tools

H5 has rich expressive power and has become a new marketing trend in the mobile Internet era. It helps to create h5 marketing scenarios with more powerful communication and makes operations even more powerful.

Which ones are there? Let’s take a look:

1. Eqxiu: http://www.eqxiu.com/show

2. Rabbit Exhibition:

http://www.rabbitpre.com/store

3. Show production:

http://xiumi.us/studio/booklet#/for/new

4. Maka: http://maka.im/store

5. Close micro page:

http://www.zhichiwangluo.com/

6. First page: http://www.ichuye.cn/

7. Epub360 Yipai: http://www.epub360.com/

8. Vxplo:

http://www.ih5.cn/not-logged-in

9. Sohu Express: http://www.kuaizhan.com/

10. Easy Flyer: http://echuandan.com/

11. Liveapp scene application/Yunlai: http://www.liveapp.cn/

12. Wix: http://www.wix.com/

7. Online QR code generation tool

QR codes play the role of transmitting information, serving as platform entrances, identity credentials, etc. in WeChat, Weibo, the Internet, offline brochures, business cards and other carriers.

We recommend the following tools:

1. Forage: http://cli.im/

2. Liantu: http://www.liantu.com/

3. Xinma: http://www.xmesm.cn/

4. 59na: http://qr.59na.com/

5. Still like: http://ewm.rengzan.com/

6. wwei Weiwei: http://www.wwei.cn/

7. Q code: http://www.qmacode.com/

8. QR Stuff: http://www.qrstuff.com/

9. Visualead: http://www.visualead.com/

10. Littleidiot:

https://qrcode.littleidiot.be/

8. Data statistical analysis website

In the era of big data, data mining, processing, analysis and application are particularly important. Data can provide a strong factual basis for strategies and strategies; it is the basis for enterprises to achieve precise marketing; and it is also the criterion for judging results. For Internet operators, in addition to paying attention to industry big data, they must also focus on the traffic data within the website.

The following data statistical analysis websites may be used:

1. iResearch: http://www.iresearch.cn/

2. TalkingData:

http://www.talkingdata.com/

3. CNZZ: http://www.cnzz.co

4. Baidu statistics:

http://tongji.baidu.com/web/welcome/login

5. Baidu Index: http://index.baidu.com/

6. Baidu data: http://index.baidu.com/

7. Datahoop big data analysis platform: http://www.datahoop.cn/

8. Qianzhan.com:

http://www.qianzhan.com/qzdata/list/147.html

9. Data view: http://www.cbdio.com/

10. Analysys: http://www.analysys.cn/

11. China Statistics Network:

http://www.itongji.cn/cms/article/index

12. Website data analysis:

http://webdataanalysis.net/

13. Ali Index: http://index.1688.com/

14. 199IT: http://www.199it.com/

15. Website analysis in China:

http://www.chinawebanalytics.cn/

16. DCCI Internet Data Center: http://www.dcci.com.cn/

17. 36 big data: http://www.36dsj.com/

9. Emoticon making tools

The emoticons that have maxed out the Moments, WeChat, Weibo, QQ circles, and even traveled to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are simply cool. For the majority of operators, emoticon materials are often used, such as occasionally inserting an emoticon into an article to make it appear relaxed and humorous.

We recommend the following three emoticon creation tools:

1. Rampage comic maker:

http://baozoumanhua.com/makers

2. Doubean Software Network: http://www.doubean.com/

3. Love Dou Tu (Dou Tu Artifact):

http://www.adoutu.com/pages/index.php

10. Image processing software

1. Beautiful pictures

2. Photoshop (PS)

3. Adobe Illustrator (AI)

4. Keniu Image (image processing software)

5. Inpaint (watermark removal software)

6. Light and shadow magic hand (improving image quality)

7. SAI painting software

11. Operation/product/entrepreneurship/IT and other online learning platforms

On the long road of operation, you will always encounter certain problems that you cannot figure out even after racking your brains; some obscure knowledge cannot be found even by wearing iron shoes. At this time, someone is especially needed to give guidance. Online communication and sharing is one of the effective ways.

1. Qidian Academy: http://www.qidianla.com/ (products, operations)

2. Three classes: http://www.sanjieke.cn/ (product, operation)

3. Mantou Business School: http://www.mtedu.com/ (products, operations, marketing)

4. Socket Academy: http://www.chazuomba.com/ (new media)

5. Dark Horse Academy:

http://xueyuan.iheima.com/ (Entrepreneurship)

6. ViewSonic Business School: http://www.yopai.com/ (ASO)

7. MOOC (IMOOC): http://www.imooc.com/ (IT)

8. Geek Academy:

http://www.jikexueyuan.com/（IT）

9. 25 School: http://www.25xt.com/ (main APP)

10. MOOC Academy: http://mooc.guokr.com/ (comprehensive)

11. NetEase Cloud Classroom: http://study.163.com/ (comprehensive)

12. Tencent Classroom: https://ke.qq.com/ (comprehensive)

13. Operate Xiaoka Show (main APP operation)

14. Gulu Academy (main operation)

15. After having an account (main new media, public account)

16. Micro-interaction (main public account operation)

17. i typesetting (main WeChat operation, typesetting)

18. Rabbit exhibition hall (main h5)

19. Activity Box Operation Academy (coming soon)

12. Advertising/design creative website

Advertising requires creativity, design requires creativity, and operations actually also require creativity. The stimulation of inspiration can bring about new creations; the occasional brainstorming can lead to a flash of new ideas.

The editor of Tianmu feels that the following novel and creative websites can bring about the divergence of thinking and the emergence of inspiration:

domestic:

1. TOPYS: http://www.topys.cn/

2. UI Chinese inspiration library: http://idea.ui.cn/

3. Design addiction: http://www.shejipi.com/

4. Visual ME design community: http://shijue.me/

5. Design youth: http://www.design521.com/

6. Oritive creative design: http://www.oritive.com/

7. Creative photo site: http://www.poboo.com/

8. Online advertising community: http://iwebad.com/

9. Lazy person gallery:

http://www.lanrentuku.com/

10. China Advertising Network: http://www.cnad.com/

11. Advertising: http://adfuns.com/

12. Meihua Network: http://www.meihua.info/c

13. Creative Network: http://www.fsdpp.cn/

14. Visual China: http://creative.vcg.com/

15. Advertising portal: http://www.adquan.com/

16. Design at 2:30: http://www.2dianban.com/

17. Shuying.com:

http://www.digitaling.com/

foreign:

1. Inspiration Grid:

http://theinspirationgrid.com/

2. siteInspire:

https://www.siteinspire.com/

3. Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/

4. welovead:

http://www.welovead.com/cn/

5. AdSoftheWorld: http://adsoftheworld.com/

6. Framelab Design Direction: http://www.frmlb.de/

7. Cargo:

http://cargocollective.com/

8. boredpanda:

http://www.boredpanda.com/

9. Creativebloq:

http://www.creativebloq.com/

10. Creative Guerrilla Marketing:

http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/ (need to circumvent the firewall)

13. Mind mapping software/website

Use the technique of paying equal attention to pictures and texts to express the relationship between topics at all levels with hierarchical diagrams of mutual affiliation and correlation, and establish memory links between topic keywords, images, colors, etc. Mind maps are highly logical and can build a framework that is clear at a glance. They are simple and easy to read and remember. They are an important tool for listing key points and outlines.

We recommend the following mind mapping tools:

1. XMind mind mapping software:

http://www.xmindchina.net/ (software)

2. Mindjet mind mapping software:

http://www.mindmanager.cc/ (software)

3. FreeMind mind map:

http://freemind.en.softonic.com/ (software)

4. iMindMap mind mapping software: http://www.imindmap.cc/ (software)

1What is USDT

Since the birth of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency market has developed to a market value of 400 billion, with more than 1,800 cryptocurrencies issued, and hundreds of cryptocurrency exchanges appearing. However, due to the unclear supervision of local governments, it is difficult for exchanges to obtain support from banks. The connection between legal currency and cryptocurrency has become a big problem, and USDT was born as a result.

USDT is Tether USD (referred to as USDT), a token based on the stable value currency U.S. dollar (USD) launched by Tether. 1 USDT = 1 U.S. dollar.

Tether tokens are issued on the Bitcoin network in accordance with the OMNI layer protocol and can be naturally sent on the Bitcoin network. Users can wire USD to a bank account provided by Tether via SWIFT, or exchange for USDT through an exchange. When redeeming USD, just do the reverse operation. Users can also exchange Bitcoin for USDT on the exchange.

Tether is located in Hong Kong. When users deposit legal currency into the company, they can obtain an equivalent amount of tokens issued by the company. The tokens can be used for transfer transactions. Any user holding Tether tokens can exchange the tokens for legal currency at a ratio of 1:1 (minus remittance fees) as long as they complete user authentication at Tether. Currently it supports the US dollar (USDT) and the euro (EURT), which are hosted in different banks, and will also support the Japanese yen in the future.

This model is similar to the issuance of legal currency. Here, the legal currency is the reserve, and the tokens on the chain are the newly issued legal currency. The company Tether acts as the central bank.

In exchanges that have listed Tether tokens, the prices of USDT and USD are basically anchored at 1:1, with little fluctuation. A small amount of fluctuations also exist, often due to the influence of market supply and demand. For example, when the market is hot, USDT, which is a legal currency entry channel, is in short supply on the exchange, causing the price to rise.

USDT Features

Tether claims to have 100% asset reserves and users can exchange USDT back to US dollars on its platform at a ratio of 1:1. At present, USDT has become the basic anchor currency of mainstream exchanges, with a circulation of 2 billion US dollars, and the price has basically remained stable at 1 US dollar.

2The operating mechanism of stablecoins

1. Centralized legal asset mortgage model

The first is through centralized legal asset mortgage. Such as Tether (USDT) or TrueCoin launched by TrustToken (such as TrueUSD).

USDT is a virtual currency issued by Tether. The former's current market value is approximately US$2.275 billion, accounting for about 90% of the entire stablecoin market share. This is what their white paper says.

“Tethers is a digital currency linked to legal currency. All Tethers are first issued in the form of tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain through the Omni Layer protocol. Each issued Tethers is linked to the US dollar one-to-one, and the corresponding total amount of US dollars is stored in Hong Kong Tether Co., Ltd. (that is, one Tether coin is one US dollar).

With Tether Limited's terms of service, holders can redeem/exchange Tethers with their equivalent fiat currency, or exchange them for Bitcoin. The price of Tether is always linked to the price of legal currency, and the storage amount of its linked currency is always greater than or equal to the amount of currency in circulation.

To put it simply, Tether promises that for every USDT they issue, they guarantee that at least 1 US dollar will be deposited in the bank at the same time, and USDT holders can exchange it for US dollars or Bitcoin at any time. This is to ensure the stability of USDT value.

Tether's method of achieving stable currency value is simple and clear, but it also has obvious drawbacks.

As some critics have pointed out, Tether suffers from the same problem as traditional centralized financial institutions, which is centralization. You need to bear the following risks:

Put aside these capabilities, reserves, policy risks, and moral trust risks. If currency issuance institutions lack supervision, it will be difficult to avoid over-issuance, spam issuance, and black-box operations, and it will also be difficult to avoid gradually becoming opaque driven by huge profits.

Circle CEO Allaire said: "Users now handle fiat currencies through things like Tether, but we see a lot of weaknesses and challenges with Tether."

Generally speaking, the implementation methods of this type of scheme are very simple and can effectively solve the floating risk. There are rarely huge fluctuations, but they bring credit risk. We need to fully trust the institutions behind it, and there will be no over-issuance, spam issuance, misappropriation of funds, or secret operations. If one day the company and the trust behind it collapse, this centralized approach will bring huge systemic risks.

2. Cryptoasset mortgage model

The second common way is to use crypto assets as collateral. Because decentralized crypto assets/tokens themselves run on the blockchain, they naturally solve trust risks and are easy to audit.

Crypto-asset mortgages are usually implemented in this way: for every 1 yuan of stable currency issued, N times (N>1) of other crypto-currency assets are deposited as collateral. The collateral is stored in a smart contract, in which Ethereum can be used to pay off the debt of the stablecoin, or it can be automatically sold by the contract software when the total price of the stablecoin falls below a certain threshold.

These features of a collateral-backed stablecoin make it unnecessary to rely on a centralized institution.

But as mentioned at the beginning of this article, cryptocurrencies themselves are extremely unstable. Therefore, binding cryptocurrencies to achieve value stability solves the trust risk, but it itself has floating risks:

Because the value of collateral will fluctuate, ensure that the unit's stablecoin is adequately collateralized. It's okay if the collateral appreciates, but if the collateral depreciates, the system needs to respond to this. We need to ensure that the collateral value per unit currency is always greater than 1.

Otherwise, once there is a huge fluctuation in the market or a black swan event, and the collateral value is seriously lower than the face value of the corresponding token, the position will be liquidated. Although we have not experienced such a large-scale collapse in the cryptocurrency market so far, it is entirely possible – just like a mortgage on real estate, the collateral depreciates rapidly and the risk of the entire system collapsing increases. This is how the sub-credit crisis of 2008 occurred.

The most terrifying animal in finance, the black swan

Taking DAI launched by MakerDao as an example, when the value of the collateral falls below a certain liquidation value, it will be liquidated. The collateral will be used to repurchase DAI from the market to pay off debt. For example, if 1 USD of DAI uses 3 USD of Ethereum as collateral, but if one day the Ethereum currency suddenly depreciates to 10% and is only worth 0.3 USD, then DAI will lose its value support and the system will be liquidated.

At the same time, assuming that we have to deposit $150 worth of Ethereum in exchange for $100 worth of DAI is a mistake that is simply inefficient. The easier way seems to be to go directly to the exchange and buy $100 worth of DAI for $100, and still have $50 left in your hand…

However, the advantages and benefits of this method of encrypted asset mortgage are also obvious. The first is decentralization, and the second is transparency. Everyone can openly see the fluctuation of the value of the collateral, so if it really collapses, the algorithm itself will be executed mindlessly.

DAI has many application scenarios, such as short-term hedging and trading, because we can see the actual value of the collateral. The short-term risk is very small, but long-term use may cause systemic risks such as black swan events.

3. Algorithmic Banking

Different from the first two operating mechanisms that require collateral, the third way to achieve stable currency is algorithmic banking.

The earliest idea of ​​algorithmic banking came from Seignorage Shares proposed by Robert Sams in 2014. The basic idea is: the supply of tokens is elastic. When the supply exceeds demand, the supply of tokens is reduced. When the supply exceeds demand, the supply of tokens is reduced. When the supply exceeds demand, the supply of tokens is increased, thereby controlling its price.

Is it somewhat similar to how in the real world the central bank maintains the purchasing power of currency by adjusting interest rates, liquidity, and foreign exchange reserves?

Take the more famous base coin as an example. Basecoin realizes the adjustment of circulation through the three-token mechanism. The three tokens are:

**Base currency:** The core token of the system, its role is to anchor the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio, and to maintain this anchoring through the expansion and contraction of its own circulation;

Bond coin: used to regulate the circulation of tokens. When the market price of the base currency is lower than 1 US dollar, the circulation of the base currency must be reduced. At this time, a bond pen auction will be held according to the smart contract system. Bond coins themselves are not anchored to assets. During the auction, the price of bond coins gradually decreases from 1, and the token holder will eventually spend less than 1 unit of base coins to obtain 1 unit of bond coins. The system promises that when new coins are issued in the future, the new tokens will be used to pay off the bond coins 1:1. This price difference will attract token holders to buy.

At the same time, the system destroys or freezes the tokens obtained from the auction, which completes the task of reducing the circulation of tokens.

When the market price is higher than the face value and the circulation of tokens needs to be expanded, the system starts minting coins. The new coins minted are first used to redeem bondholders. As stated above, new coins will be issued at a 1:1 ratio of the face value of the bonds. When bonds are redeemed, they are redeemed sequentially according to the time of bond issuance.

**Equity Coin:** Its quantity is fixed, and the equity itself is not anchored to any asset. The value of the equity comes from the dividend policy when the system issues new tokens.

That is, when executing the token circulation expansion task, if the bonds of all current creditors (bond currency holders) are redeemed and there are still tokens left to be issued, tokens will be issued to equity holders in proportion to their equity currency holdings. In this way, the number of tokens circulating in the market will be increased, which will effectively adjust the token price (pull-down).

It is not difficult to see that through the above mechanism, the contraction and expansion of token circulation can be effectively realized, thereby maintaining the stability of token prices.

However, the problem faced by currencies such as base coin that achieve stability through algorithmic banks is that the market needs to continue to be optimistic about it. Only in this way can it sell the bond coins when it issues them, thus bringing the price of the currency back to $1. Otherwise, we will fall into a terrible death spiral.

In the face of possible trust crises and attacks, Basecoin has designed some mechanisms to allow the system to recover from the death spiral, such as setting the maturity period of the bond. After a certain period of time, the repayment obligation will not be fulfilled (default). However, it is not yet known whether it can withstand the test of time.

The design of a collateral-less stablecoin is ambitious and independent of all other currencies. Even if the dollar collapses, a coin that requires no collateral can survive as a stable store of value. Unlike national central banks, uncollateralized stablecoins do not have perverse incentives to spam money. Its algorithms have only one mission: to achieve stability.

It’s an exciting possibility, and if successful, collateral-free stablecoins could revolutionize the world. But if it fails, it will be extremely catastrophic because there is no collateral to liquidate the tokens back and it will almost certainly collapse to zero.

Interestingly, although Robert Sams himself is the proposer of Seignorage Shares, he is not working on this project himself, but is working on other blockchain projects. Previous similar attempts include Peercoins’ Nubits, including the previous BitShares’ bitcny, which also suffered sharp declines and are currently not widely used. It can be seen that the implementation of this solution is indeed not as simple as imagined.

3 Reasons for the “mysterious” existence of USDT

USDT has always been questioned due to non-disclosure of audits, centralization, and alleged over-issuance to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Some even regard USDT as a Ponzi scheme. Some other stablecoin (anchored currency) alternatives have also appeared on the market, such as TrueUSD supported by the Bittrex exchange and MakerDAO's Dai. Recently, Bitmain led a US$110 million investment in Circle, which announced that it would release a stable currency USD Coin in an attempt to replace USDT.

I will start from the source and analyze the nature of stablecoins, the reasons for the success of USDT, the problems that other stablecoins need to avoid, and how to compete with USDT.

In general, most people misunderstand USDT. Its "mysterious" existence has its own reasons. It is very difficult to replace USDT. Most stablecoin contenders are probably going in the wrong direction.

1. The difference between stablecoins and tokens – why the controversial USDT is successful

First, we need to understand that the stablecoin market is fundamentally different from other cryptocurrency markets (such as Ethereum, EOS, etc.). The stablecoin market is a money market, while other cryptocurrencies are closer to the stock market.

Nobel Prize winner in economics and Swedish economist Bengt Holmström has made a clear comparison between the two. For details, see his paper "Understanding the role of debt in the financial system" (the Wisdom Institute has also analyzed this paper) and his 2017 speech "Debt and Money Markets".

In Bengt's view, the currency market is fundamentally different from the stock market. The stock market is there to provide risk sharing, while the currency market is there to provide liquidity. An important point is that currency markets are inherently opaque, and opacity can provide better liquidity in many cases.

Bengt cited several examples. When diamond group DeBeers wholesales diamonds, it only allows buyers to check whether the correct diamonds have been shipped correctly, but does not allow them to check the details of each diamond. This is because buyers will be picky and try their best to choose the best diamond package, which greatly increases transaction costs and transaction volume. Instead, DeBeers guarantees the quality of its diamonds with its good reputation and collateral. By the same example, the Fed will not announce the specific banks that lend to its discount window because this would create a liquidity premium.

A similar phenomenon can be seen in Taobao stores. Taobao does not require stores to disclose all the details of each product and take photos of each buyer when each transaction occurs. A better approach is to ask merchants to pay a deposit and highlight the role of store reputation and evaluation.

**Opacity can increase liquidity, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need transparency. Providing valid, aggregated information contributes to liquidity more than providing raw information. **This is most vividly reflected in USDT. The official website of Tide Company has a dedicated "transparency" page, which records the asset balance and the issuance quantity of USDT.

However, since the audit company it cooperated with terminated its cooperation, Tide Company has not provided a detailed audit report (the most recent one was in September last year), nor has it proved whether all assets are in US dollars. This is also one of the reasons why people question the over-issuance of USDT.

*Tether official website description: There are 100% real assets behind all USDT

In fact, this opacity at Ted is actually intentional. Providing only aggregated information is more conducive to the liquidity of USDT. Asset reserve is a vague term. I don't know what the real assets behind USDT represent, but neither does anyone else. "Symmetric ignorance" in the market has reached an equilibrium – no one knows the asset composition behind USDT, but still uses USDT.

2. Complete transparency and 100% USD reserves are not good medicine – the fatal flaw of TrueUSD

Doesn’t Tether’s approach run counter to the spirit of transparency and decentralization pursued by the blockchain? This is indeed the case, and because of this, other US dollar-anchored stablecoins have appeared on the market, trying to replace USDT with a more "blockchain approach."

For example, Bittrex exchange supports anchoring TrueUSD (TUSD), and users can get 1:1 TUSD by depositing US dollars. Unlike USDT, TrueUSD 1. Guarantees full US dollar reserves and provides regular audits. 2. Implement strict standards of KYC/AML verification. 3. Independent hosting, no need to deal with the TrueUSD project team. These three major features seem to be "improvements" to USDT. Will they be advantages in the actual market?

TrueUSD's current market value only accounts for 1/250 of USDT. Of course, this is related to the fact that TrueUSD is still in its early stages, but a recent incident almost caused TrueUSD to be detached from the US dollar. A week ago, Binance, the world's largest exchange, announced that it would launch TrueUSD and open the TUSD/BNB, TUSD/BTC, and TUSD/ETH trading markets.

This is originally a good thing for TrueUSD. More people trading and using TUSD will inevitably increase its market share and acceptance. However, the result was massive price fluctuations in TUSD.

The picture below is the TUSD price chart before Binance released the news:

Despite the fluctuations, TUSD has always been able to maintain a price of around $1.

But after Binance announced that it would list TUSD:

The price of TrueUSD surged on exchanges where it was listed, reaching a maximum of 1.3 TUSD = 1 USD. Many investors regard TUSD as an ordinary token. After discovering the news that Binance will list TUSD, they immediately go to other exchanges to try to "buy the bottom", which causes the price of TrueUSD to skyrocket.

Market participants treat the currency market (information insensitive) where TrueUSD belongs to as the stock market (information sensitive). In fact, in the case of severe information asymmetry, a temporary premium is normal. As long as there is sufficient liquidity, the premium can be eliminated quickly. However, the mechanism of TrueUSD buried its fatal flaw, which also caused it to be decoupled from the US dollar for nearly half a day.

TrueUSD emphasizes strict KYC. Generally, users who want to exchange their US dollars into TUSD at a 1:1 ratio need to fill in a detailed form and wait for more than a few weeks.

This means that it is difficult for ordinary market participants to act as liquidity providers and smooth out market premiums. At the same time, due to TrueUSD's pursuit of independent custody, the team itself does not have sufficient capital reserves and market-making policies, and is unable to respond to market conditions in a timely manner when a crisis occurs.

The next day, Binance issued a notice that it would delay the listing of TUSD: the TrueUSD team needs sufficient time to meet liquidity.

It can be seen that the TrueUSD team is aware of the shortage of liquidity, but the flaws embedded in its mechanism cannot fundamentally solve this problem. Other anchored coin products appear to be following TrueUSD's path. Last week, Bitcoin Continent led a $110 million investment in Circle, which will develop USD Coin and also claims to provide transparent auditing and complete U.S. dollar reserves. As mentioned above, this direction is likely to go against the core of money markets – providing efficient liquidity.

Complete transparency sometimes reduces the efficiency of liquidity. Complete US dollar reserves limit currency-generating assets to fiat currencies, but in reality currency-generating assets are far more than fiat currencies, but include various other debt or asset derivatives. Regarding the money creation of modern banks, it is recommended to read the Bank of England's paper "Money creation in the modern economy (Money creation in the modern economy)"

**3. Alternatives and Breakthrough Points **- Over-collateralization model taking Dai as an example

**Is USDT risk-free? Of course not. As mentioned above, the circulation of USDT is based on the equilibrium reached by people's "symmetric ignorance", but this opacity pushes the risk to the end. **Users and some exchanges regard USDT as a "time bomb" that is used as a last resort. If the banks that Tide cooperates with default, or Tide's reserve assets plummet, or the government bans Tide Company, this black swan event will break the current equilibrium and trigger a domino effect, and the entire cryptocurrency market will face an economic crisis or even collapse.

How to compete for a place in the current equilibrium while providing hedging options for the cryptocurrency market during the USDT crisis?

Here is a brief introduction to some basic theories of game theory. **Nash equilibrium is when, given the current reward, market participants have no incentive to move to any other point, so they stay in their current state. **Nash equilibrium does not represent the global optimal equilibrium, but can be a suboptimal equilibrium (there are better options that can benefit the whole world, but people are unwilling to move because any move will not bring higher benefits to individuals). The classic example is the prisoner's dilemma.

The current stable currency market can be said to be in a suboptimal equilibrium: **People realize that USDT may not be the best choice, but individuals have no incentive to try other stable currencies. **Therefore, even if the mechanism becomes better, it will be very difficult for TrueUSD and Circle to challenge or replace USDT in the same field.

Giving market participants new returns and creating another equilibrium paradigm is a more rational (perhaps the only) breakthrough point. This requires that it is fundamentally different from USDT (higher than the level of supervision and auditing) and that it can ensure efficient liquidity.

**Over-collateralization is a feasible and widely used method in financial markets. **The creation of liquidity by over-collateralization is not a new thing. It originated from pawnshops in ancient China. Pawnshops allowed liquidity demanders and providers to quickly obtain liquidity without having to undergo a price discovery process. For example, someone is willing to sell a collection of famous paintings to obtain liquidity, but the accurate valuation of famous paintings is a very costly matter. Instead of bargaining, the pawnshop can give the holder of the famous paintings a loan that is significantly lower than its value, and then both parties agree to pay off the loan and interest within a specified time, and the famous paintings return to their original owners. This ancient but very effective method has continued into the modern financial repo market. (The repo market is an important money market, accounting for nearly $3 trillion in market capitalization).

The most successful project based on this model so far is the MakerDAO project, whose stablecoin Dai is issued through over-collateralized assets. The innovation is that its collateral is on-chain assets such as Ethereum, which can provide liquidity at a low cost based on smart contracts (anyone can obtain liquidity by over-collateralizing Ethereum assets). The issuance model of asset mortgages on the chain encourages people to spontaneously mortgage funds, enriches the sources of liquidity, and eliminates the need for centralized gateways and custody, eliminating people's doubts about central institutions (since the mortgage process is all on the chain, sufficient transparency is provided).

Over-guarantee and automatic liquidation themselves avoid the cost of price discovery and the liquidation of risky debt.

Even if Dai experiences temporary illiquidity, any market participant can generate liquidity by staking at a cost of $1 to even out the premium in the form of arbitrage.

*Since its launch in 2012, the price of Dai has remained basically stable at $1.

Importantly, Dai does not directly compete with USDT for the traditional exchange market. Dai's decentralized issuance and its own ERC20 standard make it the first choice for decentralized exchanges and applications, and serves as the base currency on many decentralized exchanges (even including some traditional exchanges). This creates another equilibrium paradigm (base currency for decentralized exchanges and applications) by giving market participants new rewards (collaterals).

4 words written at the back

This article introduces the nature of stablecoins and people’s misunderstandings when understanding USDT, and analyzes several major stablecoin models and prospects. The development of stablecoins is still in a relatively early stage. It is foreseeable that USDT will still dominate the stablecoin market in the short term, and with the follow-up of supervision, the development of the blockchain itself and the emergence of new technologies, the current situation may change.