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PayPal’s “new” Stablecoin
VR Treadmill for your home
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PayPal Stablecoin
Did Christmas come just a little early this year or did PayPal just announce its brand new stablecoin – PYUSD?
They are saying all the right – and identical – things to basically every other stablecoin ever pitched.
Backed by USD 1:1
Easy to get in and (probably) out
So what makes this one different?
Well, its issuing company is Paxos Trust, which is an actual….trust. So, if it goes belly up, the NY Department of Financial Services will step in and do its little lawsuit thingie and try to make the parties that fell victim whole again. (The rich ones first, of course)
I mean, this whole thing sounds pretty familiar, but I can’t quite place my finger on why…
Oh yeah! It sounds a whole lot like BUSD…also issued by Paxos, that the SEC dropped the ban hammer on earlier this year.
Wait no, that’s not it. Maybe it’s more like the "world’s leading regulated stablecoin” USDP! Except this time, it’s issued by…oh.
Side note: It’s hard to tell how they claim USDP is leading when Its volume is 10x lower than even BUSD, which is like…barely even a thing now.
Paxos seems to be hoping that PayPal’s gravitas coupled with its tradfi roots will give add resiliency, adoption, and hopefully…stability. I’ll see myself out.
I was extra curious as to how Tether would respond to the situation. Tether has been the bane of my existence for a few years now with its wild swings and lack of trust in the community.
Paulo Ardoino from Tether was quoted saying that this is, “no biggie-dealio”, because they – as in the issuers of USDT – “don’t serve the US market.”
Holup. A token named USDT, (purportedly) backed by United States Dollars, created as an easy way for people holding US currency to move in and out of crypto…serves who now?
Sure, the US government hasn’t made it simple for the average crypto investor, but any US citizen can jump onto any US-based exchange and trade in dozens of USDT markets. It’s serving this market. It may in fact be a big whoop, even.
It’s hard to tell if crypto is getting more or less approachable these days, but it’s easy to tell that the little red ball is currently under none of the cups.
Let’s just flip them all over and play some beer pong, like in college.
At home VR treadmills…
The company Vitruix, that makes those enormous VR contraptions for Dave n’ Busters, announced it has raised $5m to launch a VR treadmill for home use.
Watch this brief clip, gather your thoughts, then head on back over.
Done? Ok.
This will not be a thing. It won’t. Not a thing. Nope.
Imagine this, but like…futuristic.
This is a niche item with a niche price in a niche space.
This is not a fitness item. One of the core pitches in the video is “BURN CALORIES WHILE GAMING.” Someone at HQ heard the word sweaty when their 7 year old was playing Fortnite and thought that gamers actually wanted to be sweaty. They mostly don’t.
Even if they did, you wouldl not be able to effectively get a reasonable stride something like this. It’s basically going to be like falling forever on ice. Plus, you can’t add resistance without significantly increasing your risk of completely destroying someone’s face.
It’s also not a gaming system. I don’t know what to tell you here, but VR is still in the stage where it feels gimmicky. A lot of the games are just the original game, just really, really freaking close to your face.
So who does it appeal to then? 5 people are going to want to deal with this monstrosity and 4 of them are going to have them on Facebook Marketplace within a month.
I’m not saying that having one of these $2600 jump-scare machines wouldn’t be fun – it definitely could be – but this is reserved for a special class of people with high amounts of disposal income and no predisposition to vertigo.
All that said, I am a huge fan of the idea of VR and more specifically its not-so-immersive cousin AR. I hope to someday have an effective workstation setup similar to the Apple Vision Pro, but without it costing as much as a 4-year degree. A man can dream.
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