DuneWhat is Unitas?
Unitas Foundation enables financial sovereignty by granting people the right to choose their units of account while transacting with each other.
Unitas Protocol defines a new stablecoin category -- unitized stablecoins, which serve as units of account representing emerging market currencies. Unitas’ unitized stablecoins are over-reserved with exogenous USD stablecoins (e.g., USDT, USDC, Dai).
Holding a Unitas stablecoin is essentially holding a USD stablecoin; for example, holding 1 Unitas Indian Rupee stablecoin is essentially holding 1/80 USDT (at the current RBI rate). Therefore, Unitas stablecoins are affixed with their corresponding country code, e.g., USD91 for Indian Rupee, USD971 for UAE Dirham, and USD1 for US Dollar.
The goal is to “unitize” a USD stablecoin into one local currency unit, thereby providing transaction ease and efficiency for people in different countries. Unitas Protocol is a value translator between USD and other currencies and guarantees that each Unitas stablecoin can unconditionally convert “back” to a USD stablecoin.
How does Unitas work?
USD1 is Unitas’ base stablecoin and reflects the value of 1 exogenous USD stablecoin (e.g., USDT, USDC, Dai).
One USD91 represents an amount of USD stablecoin whose value is equivalent to one INR (Indian Rupee). For example, if a USD stablecoin’s exchange rate against INR is 1:80, then one USD91 represents 1/80 of that USD stablecoin.
Unitas Protocol implements different modes to obtain real-world rates via oracles.
Unitas stablecoins are 130% to 200% over-reserved with USD stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, Dai, BUSD, etc.
In the unlikely event that the over-reserve ratio decreases to 100%, Unitas Protocol executes a global settlement that auto-converts all Unitas stablecoins to USD stablecoins.
To acquire Unitas stablecoins such as USD91, a user first acquires the Unitas USD stablecoin USD1. She’d swap her USD stablecoin (e.g., USDT) with the protocol for USD1. The protocol takes her USD stablecoin and mints out USD1 for her in exchange.
She’d proceed to swap her USD1 for USD91 with the protocol; Unitas burns her USD1 and mints out USD91 for her in exchange. Unlike Maker and Liquidty, Unitas users aren’t responsible for the protocol’s over-reservation.
Insurance Providers (IPs) lend their USD stablecoins to the protocol to fund its over-reservation. We call this “IP staking.” During a lending period, the protocol mints out 4REX to an IP, allowing the IP to share the protocol’s profits. The protocol also creates a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) for this loan so that once the loan matures, the IP can redeem her principal.
When a loan matures, and the IP decides to use the CDP to redeem her principal, she will need to return to the protocol the exact amount of 4REX tokens she received when creating this CDP.
Let’s unleash emerging market potentials by using decentralized blockchain protocols!
Why use Unitas?
Unitas levels the playing field for emerging market businesses and entrepreneurs by elevating their financial sovereignty and integrating them into the global financial and DeFi systems.
By creating the new stablecoin category “unitized stablecoins,” Unitas Protocol operates exogenously over-reserved stablecoins pegged to emerging market currencies. These stablecoins unleash emerging market potentials by facilitating foreign investment, cross-border payment, global market access, DeFi participation, efficient USD liquidity, and more.
What’s the meaning behind the name Unitas?
“Unitas” was the codename for Harry White’s proposal at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, which gave birth to today’s International Monetary Fund (IMF). White was the economist representing the US. Parts of our Unitas Protocol’s design resemble White’s “Unitas,” since our goal is to create a DeFi “translator” that can unconditionally convert an emerging market stablecoin back to a USD stablecoin.
The
Unitas Team
Co-Founders
Wayne Huang, PhD
Co-Founder and Board Member
Winston Hsiao
Co-Founder and Board Member
Sun Huang
Co-Founder, Board Member and Chief Technology Officer
Founding Contributors
Aditya Gupta
Founding Contributor and Product Manager
Andrew Chen, PhD
Founding Contributor and DeFi Researcher
Founding Members
Join the movement!
Unitas Foundation is actively seeking members, collaborators, and partners including for example:
Financial institutions
Banks
Payment organizations
Money transfer operators
Money service organizations
Payment organizations
Digital wallets and credit card issuers
VASPs
Centralized exchange
Decentralized exchange
Stablecoin issuers
GameFi
Market makers
OTC desks
Regulators
Central banks
Government departments
Law enforcement entities
Blockchain enthusiasts
DeFi experts
Stablecoin passionate supporters
Financial inclusion proponents
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