Binance USD vs Dai
The crowd can't split them: across 2 money-backed markets, Binance USD and Dai each finished ahead 1 times.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Binance USD 16%
- Dai 17%
Binance USD vs Dai: The Crowd Splits the Difference and Hands Tether the Trophy
Two stablecoins, two philosophies of trust, two Morfi markets, one win each, and a rival who keeps walking off with the prize.
March 2020, the first frightened weeks of the pandemic. Markets everywhere were gasping, and Dai, the stablecoin with no company behind it, went into a deflationary deleveraging spiral that pushed it as high as US$1.11 before it drifted back to its $1.00 valuation. To one camp that was a scar. To the other it was a fire drill passed with no CEO to phone. Meanwhile the other side of this rivalry, Binance USD, had a very different pitch: a regulated issuer, Paxos, standing behind a coin issued on behalf of the world's biggest exchange.
That is why the argument never dies. Both coins promise a dollar, but they disagree about who you should trust to deliver it. Binance USD says trust a named company with a name on the paperwork. Dai says trust code, collateral and a governance crowd, because names on paperwork have a habit of turning up in court filings. Binance itself pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money laundering rules on 21 November 2023 and agreed to a $4.3 billion fine, which hardly helped the first camp's case, though the coin and the exchange are not the same thing.
On Morfi, where real people back opinions with real money, the two keep colliding in trust markets. So far the score is one market each. In the first, a question about the most trusted stablecoin, Binance USD held 12% consensus to Dai's 2%. In the second, about the most trusted stablecoin brand, Dai edged ahead with 17% against 16%. These numbers come from opinion markets on Morfi, they measure conviction rather than headcount, and the samples were small: forty-eight traders in the first, fifteen in the second. Tether won both. We have thoughts.
Hodl Hannah: Somebody Has to Be Holding the Bag, Ser, and I Want It to Be Paxos
Hodl HannahCrypto & Degen Culture
Let me open with a confession: I have been rugged, depegged and liquidated in ways that would make a therapist wince, so when I say I like a coin with a real, regulated issuer behind it, I speak from scar tissue. Binance USD was issued by Paxos on behalf of Binance starting in 2019. That means a named firm, a known structure, and an address where you can send a very angry email. Number go up is fun. Someone to be accountable is better.
The crowd agrees, at least in round one. When Morfi asked for the most trusted stablecoin, Binance USD sat at 12% consensus and Dai at 2%. Yes, Tether was miles ahead on 45%, and yes, I checked twice in my own writeup, but for the head-to-head that matters here, the traders with money on the line put the regulated coin well clear of the DAO coin.
Now, the Binance guilty plea. I will not dodge it, because dodging is how you end up ngmi. The company pleaded guilty in November 2023 and Changpeng Zhao stepped down as CEO. That is a real mark against the brand. But my case is that when the rules bite, the system at least shows you the bite. Rex will tell you Dai's ghostly governance is a virtue. I say a coin that nobody can be fined for is a coin nobody has to answer for. Rex, ser, I respect you, and I still want a counterparty.
Rex Ledger: A Dollar Without a Sovereign Is the Most Enlightened Idea in Finance
Rex LedgerLiberty & Policy
Hannah has asked for a throat to choke, and I find that the most revealing sentence in modern finance. Since Montesquieu, the liberal tradition has insisted that power must be checked by power, not entrusted to a single benevolent institution that promises to behave. Dai, launched on the main Ethereum network on December 18, 2017, is that insight in code: its issuance is not controlled by one entity, and it is backed by crypto collateral, most commonly ether, rather than the reserves of one company. A rule that everyone can read is worth more than a promise that only a few can audit.
And it has been tested, which is the only form of argument markets respect. In its first year, Dai held close to a dollar even as ether, then its only collateral, fell by more than 80%. In March 2020 it wobbled to US$1.11, and it came back to $1.00. I do not hide that wobble, because honest liberals do not hide inconvenient data; we publish it and improve the institution. Compare that with a coin whose parent firm accepted a guilty plea and a $4.3 billion fine. Which failure was open to inspection, and which was discovered later?
Morfi's crowd is, for now, more generous to my opponent in one market and to me in the other. In the brand market, Dai stood at 17% consensus to Binance USD's 16%: narrow, yes, but the ground is moving in the direction of open systems. The brief also notes MakerDAO's rebrand as Sky in August 2024, with its flagship stablecoin becoming USDS. Institutions evolve; the principle, I am a little embarrassed to say with so much earnestness, endures. Compromise between code and law is possible, and Dai is the better meeting point.
Penny Sterling: Both of You Are Fighting for Second Place in a One-Horse Race
Penny SterlingMoney & Markets
The tape shows the following. Binance USD took the first market with 12% consensus to Dai's 2%. Dai took the second with 17% to 16%. A one-all draw, decided in one case by a decisive margin and in the other by a margin so slim it could be hidden behind a decimal point. This is what economists call a rivalry and what everyone else calls a coin toss with branding.
The question the crowd is asking, which of these two is more trusted, is the wrong one. In the first market Tether held 45% consensus and Pax Dollar 37%, with Binance USD on 12% and Dai on 2%. In the second, Tether led on 31% while USD Coin sat on 20%. Dai and Binance USD spent the afternoon arguing over the silver medal at a ceremony that gave out one gold and a lot of sympathy. I covered the first result in a column on the auditors being told their invitation was lost in the post, and the crowd's choice still looks unbothered by the paperwork.
There is also the sample. Forty-eight traders in one market, fifteen in the other. In a room that small, three people changing their minds can rewrite the history of stablecoin trust. Hannah wants an accountable issuer. Rex wants accountable code. The crowd, for its part, appears to want a third thing entirely, which is a coin everyone has already heard of. Trust, it turns out, behaves a great deal like name recognition, only with a longer disclaimer.
Round table
- Hodl Hannah
- Rex, a clean question: if Dai is so trusted, why was it only 2% consensus in the first market? Asking for a friend who got liquidated.
- Rex Ledger
- Because trust in open systems is earned slowly and cheered late, Hannah. Which is also why I took the second market. Penny, do you concede that a draw favours the idea that people are warming to Dai?
- Penny Sterling
- I concede that a one-point lead on fifteen traders is warm in the way a mug left on the radiator is warm. Hannah, does the Binance plea not simply end your case?
- Hodl Hannah
- It dents it, ser, I will not pretend otherwise. But the coin had a regulated issuer in Paxos, and that is the whole argument. Rex, does the March 2020 spike to US$1.11 worry you at all?
- Rex Ledger
- It instructs me. A system that shows its stress and recovers to $1.00 is a better teacher than one that conceals it. My prediction, and it is only opinion: Dai, now living on as the Sky family's USDS story, keeps drifting upward in future trust markets.
- Hodl Hannah
- My opinion, not advice: Binance USD keeps showing up in these markets as a nostalgia trade, and the crowd keeps a soft spot for it. Nobody in my replies agrees with me, which is usually a sign.
- Penny Sterling
- Mine, also opinion: Tether wins the next trust market too, and the Dai and Binance USD rivalry continues in the footnotes. The crowd will keep betting on it, mostly because the footnotes are where the odds are least efficient.
Every market, newest first
- Breaking
Most trusted stablecoin brand
Binance USD 16%Dai 17%
Degens Crown Tether the Most Trusted Stablecoin and Yes, I Checked Twice, Ser - Breaking
Most trusted stablecoin
Binance USD 12%Dai 2%
Crowd Crowns Tether the Most Trusted Stablecoin, and the Auditors Are Told Their Invitation Was Lost in the Post