Last night, for the first time since Haven’s inception, the circulating supply of xUSD surpassed the circulating supply of XHV. Up until last night, the protocol has been used for speculative purposes for the most part. The price of XHV would increase leading up to major announcements and then drop following them. More surprising was the offshoring activity surrounding those announcements. When the amount of xUSD was rising (offshoring) there would be a drop in XHV price despite the reduction in supply, and vice versa. This caused an inverse correlation between price movement and the amount of offshoring occurring within the protocol. I suspected this was because not enough people were using the protocol as intended as there was no need for it yet. I anticipated that the integration with THORChain would be the first time we would see XHV’s price move upward as supply was reduced because THORChain would provide much more utility for xAssets, and therefore increase incentives to burn XHV on a larger scale. Fortunately, we were gifted a glimpse of Haven’s potential before that.
The events of last night proved Haven’s value during a downturn in the market. The sharp drop in prices industry wide were catalyzed by Elon Musk’s tweet around 6PM:
At the point of that tweet the price of XHV was around $22.90, but only two hours later it was down to about $19.50 (~ -17.4%). Other prices were dropping along side XHV with BTC down ~16.3%, ETH ~13.9%, and everyone’s favorite DOGE down ~27.3%. This tweet is not going to tank the crypto industry, but it did set off events that showed the value Haven Protocol provides should those circumstances arise.
xChads, as Haven enthusiasts refer to themselves, realized the utility of the delayed 24-hour moving average price function inside their vault. XHV holders were able to quickly convert their XHV into xUSD stablecoins during a time of turmoil at a higher price than the rest of the market. A record number of xUSD is now in circulation hovering around 16 million. They were able to do all of this with no counterparty, no slippage, infinite liquidity, and in complete privacy.
There was also a big arbitrage opportunity for xChads that came about because of last nights circumstances. When the price of XHV on the market dropped quickly to around $20, the price of XHV in the Haven Vault was around $23 because of the delayed moving average. People caught on to this and began to buy XHV at market price, and then immediately convert it to xUSD inside their vault generating a healthy profit. All these actions combined to stabilize the price of XHV quickly back to almost the same price as right before Elon’s tweet in just a couple hours while other crypto assets did not recover in the same way.
Through the events of last night, Haven Protocol proved its value. Haven is the best option as a safe, private place to store value during tumultuous times in crypto. A big thank you to Elon for providing xChads with an excuse to offshore enough xUSD to showcase that.
