Basis Cash (BAC)

 Basics

• Started in / Announced on:
• Mainnet release:
• Based in:
• From DeFi Prime (7-12-2020):

"Inspired by the Basis stablecoin project of yore, Basis Cash is a new algorithmic stablecoin project that functions as a sort of DeFi central bank."

Audits & Hacks

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].

History

• Basis Cash is a fork of shuttered algorithmic cryptocurrency Basis (9-12-2020):

"The project seeks to revive Basis without the SEC, VCs, or Bullshit, the anonymous founders wrote in the project’s Twitter bio." 

• From CoinDesk (11-5-2022):

"Basis Cash (BAC) was a closely watched revival in decentralized finance (DeFi) circles when it launched on Ethereum in late 2020, just before the launch of terraUSD (UST), Terra’s flagship stablecoin. Like UST, BAC sought to maintain a $1 peg through code, not collateral. But it failed: The token of this long-abandoned project never achieved its target of dollar parity, sank below $1 in early 2021 and was trading well below 1 cent on Wednesday. Now history appears to be repeating: Over the last three days, UST sank precipitously below its peg, going as low as 27 cents in early morning U.S. hours Wednesday.

An anonymous team of builders – mostly employees of Terraform Labs, according to chat logs reviewed by CoinDesk – modeled Basis Cash after an earlier project called Basis (formerly known as Basecoin).

Hyungsuk Kang, a former engineer at Terraform Labs (TFL), said Basis Cash was, in fact, a side project from some of Terra’s early creators, including himself and Kwon. Kang ultimately left TFL to build a Terra competitor called Standard Protocol. Another Basis Cash builder who spoke to CoinDesk on condition of anonymity confirmed that Do Kwon and TFL employees were behind the project.

“Basis Cash wasn’t tested at the moment, and we weren’t even sure” it would work, Kang said. Kwon “wanted to just test it out. He said that this was a pilot project for doing that.” Both Kang and the anonymous employee tell CoinDesk Kwon was “Rick Sanchez,” the pseudonymous co-founder. CoinDesk also reviewed internal “Basis Cash Korea (BCK)” chat logs in which Kwon alludes to himself as “Rick.” Kwon did not respond to CoinDesk’s requests for comment."

Token

Token Details

• From The Defiant (9-12-2020):

"Presenting an MVP stablecoin called Basis Cash (BAC) and a governance token called Basis Shares (BAS).  To maintain its peg, a third token called Basis Bonds (BAB) is issued whenever the price of BAC drops below a dollar. Users can claim BAB’s should BAC trade below a dollar, and redeem them when BAC trades above a dollar. In its current form, users are incentivized to sell BAC down to its target peg of $1."

Technology

• Whitepaper can be found [insert here].
• Code can be viewed [insert here].
• Built on:

Roadmap

• Can be found [Insert link here].

Usage

• From The Defiant (9-12-2020):

"[BAC] is touting DeFi-summer-like APYs as the newly launched stablecoin trades at $57 despite targeting a $1 peg. Peaking at nearly $200M in TVL, liquidity has since dropped to $2.5M according to DeFi Llama.

Team, Funding, Partners

Team

• Full team can be found [here].
• Anonymous (9-12-2020).
• Do Kwon; pseudonymous founder, got revealed after UST's demise on the 9th of May 2022.