FAQ
Q1: What is the story behind SAT ?
A1) The SAT idea goes back about 100 years to Warren Buffett’s guru – Benjamin Graham. In the 1930’s Graham came up with the idea of a currency created out of a basket of commodities. Basically, his idea was to replace the gold standard with an international monetary standard using a group of commodities to spread the risk and maintain stability. Graham wanted it for Bretton Woods. Friedrich Hayek (for) and John Maynard Keynes (against) openly debated the idea from the early 1930s till Keynes’s death in 1946. Lord Keynes would later concede, “My own sympathies have always fallen that way. I hope the world will come to some version of it.”
Q2) Why would anyone buy SAT?
A2) SAT IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. If you are happy with the way things are in today- keep saving US dollars, pounds, euros, pesos, etc.. or buy USDT/USDC which are just digital versions of the US Dollar. Satoshi built Bitcoin because of the problems in the existing system; that is why he tried to build neutral non-inflationary money. Bitcoin cannot do that job by itself. SAT helps Bitcoin and other non-inflationary money (like gold) be what they were born to be- that is why SAT is named after Satoshi.
Q3) How can I use SAT?
A3) When you buy SAT you are holding a hard asset that cannot inflate because it is not printed out of thin air, so it is wealth preservation without exposure to any one asset like gold or Bitcoin. Its diversification is like an ETF because it holds an asset class mix, but it is a stablecoin so it is not an appreciating like an ETF would. When you buy a SAT you also get a CAT (Commodity Asset Token) – which is tradable for arbitrage. In time more use cases mean more SAT utility working for you.
Q4) How transparent is SAT?
A4) Satoshi built Bitcoin to be transparent, so SAT survives by being transparent too. All collateral information coming in/out of the network will be reported 24x7x365 for interested clients, businesses, auditors, and regulators – because trust is not given, it is earned.
Q5) How safe is SAT?
A5) SAT holds only a basket of commodities for its peg and consistently checks the commodities exchange markets for price volatility. We get that market data directly from global commodities exchanges. Security is proactive, we will monitor transactions and flag suspicious behavior to protect SAT holders, the network, and the peg.
Q6) What exactly is in the SAT basket?
A6) As of this writing: 20% – gold, silver, copper, platinum, and bitcoin; though this configuration is modular to protect the peg. In reality, SAT has a low correlation to the basket, but a high one to the collateral held against the peg to ensure low price volatility. As time goes on the basket will diversify to be even more robust. SAT uses the 1913 US Dollar peg, which (adjusted for inflation) is $100 US Dollars today.
Q7) How does SAT hold its $100 US Dollar peg?
A7) SAT holds a basket of commodities (150% over-collateralized) and treasury reserves in cash and its own token (CAT) making it the most defensible money ever created, The basket spreads the risk of any single commodity losing enough value to threaten the $100 US Dollar peg. We also have SAT mint limits in the event of a black swan attack or market volatility.
Q8) How does SAT decide when to make a change to its’ basket?
A8) The SAT network will monitor price swings and if any one price falls 5-10%, the asset begins to de-leverage, at 10-20% it’ll be replaced. Decisions on what to leverage and de-leverage given different scenarios are pre-determined and audited every month by our team and published openly. Arbitrage attacks are just as dangerous as hacks (if not more so) because those attacks can be extremely well financed, so in our view prevention up-front is far greater than a last minute cure as the event is happening.
Q9) What can I use to mint SAT and how can I burn it?
A9) You can only use another stablecoin or Bitcoin to mint SAT (a list will be posted on the website). When you burn SAT redemptions mirror what you put in. There are small fees associated with both. When you login to our portal to mint – you will have the option to use a backup wallet address prior to minting, because when you burn SAT, the network will only burn back to the origin address (or your backup). We will publish an FAQ and discord channel for issues prior to launch.
Q10) How does SAT survive a black swan economic attack?
A10) SAT survives by being overly conservative in terms of treasury and reserve holdings. Though SAT is 150% over-collateralized with each mint, we will maintain at minimum an additional 21% on top of that in cash & CAT tokens in the SAT treasury. Why? Because we expect massive economic issues because they have happened before- such as what happened in 1929, 2008 or more recently oil trading below $0 in 2020.
Q11) How does SAT prevent bad actors from attacking the network?
A11) SAT has tiered levels of users: B2C, B2B, and OTC. All three have withdraw timers for what could be large red flag transactions. Since all three use origin/back-up fixed wallet address withdraws a hacker would have to beat a very challenging list of measures such as:
1) Hacker hijacks target wallet – so they can drain it
2) Hacker beats authentication – larger accounts require MFA
3) Hacker beats the withdraw timer to skip the Xhr hold period
4) Proxy hold – security procedure to re-ID the user via SMS and email
5) IP whitelist hold – security procedure to re-ID the user via their location
Q12) Is SAT decentralized?
A12) YES and NO. Yes in the sense that our network is geo-diverse and SAT is borderless money. But also no, because we issue SAT. Think of it this way – the Internet is centralized around telecom companies. Search is centralized around Google. Your water, power, and cell phone bills come from centralized entities. Even Bitcoin is centralized around mining in data centers. Centralization is what happens when networks are big. We issue SAT and we have licensed and insured custodians around the world holding your physical and digital assets. We cannot meet our fiduciary responsibilities to you, businesses, auditors or government regulators without some level of centralization. Fortunately for Satoshi, he never dealt with the responsibilities we do.