Gambling and Anchors: The Risk Puzzle Behind Financial Innovation
Have you ever played heads or tails with a coin toss? Simple and straightforward. But once the stakes turn into predicting reality, the rules become complicated and sometimes even come to a sudden halt.
The prediction platform Kalshi recently hit the pause button. They initially planned to allow users to bet on college athlete transfers, and while they have submitted an application to regulators, they have made it clear that there are "no immediate plans for launch." This reminds us that in financial innovation, regulation is often the invisible hand that makes projects wait and see.
On the other hand, the mechanism of the stablecoin USDD resembles a carefully designed balancing act. It currently relies mainly on a module called PSM to maintain price stability, allowing users to directly exchange USDD for mainstream stablecoins like USDT. It sounds smart, but the risks lie in the collateral — its reserve assets include a large amount of its own TRX tokens. Once the market loses confidence in TRX, the entire collateral base will be shaken.
The real risks go beyond this. The reserves of USDD are controlled by a multi-signature wallet, which, while enhancing decision-making efficiency, also brings centralized risk. Users holding across chains must additionally worry about the security issues of bridging contracts.
Therefore, investors need to stay clear-headed. Don’t be attracted solely by high yields; instead, pay attention to the actual reserve amount of stablecoins in the PSM pool, as this is the key indicator for judging whether the system is healthy. Financial innovation often comes with hidden costs, understanding the rules is far more important than chasing yields.
