Hi, big noob here, I’ve been in crypto for a long time but never really got the full picture in terms of what is secure and what is not.
Here are my questions.
Is it possible for the anchor protocol website to get shut down?
Is it possible for the devs of anchor website to disable the withdrawal button?
If these happen, would our aUST be locked until further action is taken? Or would we be able to sell it
Both yes but this is true for any defi web interface, the devs can make whatever change they want. The frontend(website in this case) just lets you interact with the backend(contracts) in an easy way. If the frontend went down or is inaccessible for some reason you would still be able to transact directly to the contract.
Correct me if I’m wrong, you seem to think that the website is the blockchain or contracts where the UST sits, which it isn’t. If that is the case I’d recommend reading up on the general structure of blockchains/smart contracts/defi.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Right I suppose it is no different than Blockfi with regards to potential of the website getting shut down. The gap of understanding I was running into was with aUST, I couldn’t find any information on it. I’m not used to seeing coins that don’t exist on exchanges! I do now see aUST is documented here Redeeming Stablecoins - Anchor Protocol. I imagine if the website was shut down by government we would only lose the user interface, and not the underlying functionality of redeeming aUST through API(?) Maybe that could be shut down too.
I’ll take some time to learn more about decentralization of the underlying API, I think the characters behind the Terra company are trustworthy enough and have the self interest to not kill the company whether that’s possible or not. I’ve invested in anchor protocol aUST. I know people much more knowledgeable than I have done so as well!
If anyone is in my boat, confused about aUST, I believe this is an article that explains it. Money Market - Anchor Protocol
I’ve been confused about aUST as well.
I imagine if the website was shut down by government we would only lose the user interface, and not the underlying functionality of redeeming aUST through API(?) Maybe that could be shut down too.
It’s extremely hard to ban/shutdown a website effectively for any significant periods of time. So the redemption can generally be done by querying the deposit smart contract. How is it secure? Well it’s the very nature of all blockchains to secure it in different ways. This is fundamental to all blockchain tech so I strongly recommend some general walktroughs, Andreas Antonopoulos channel is a great place to start.
Terra company are trustworthy enough and have the self-interest to not kill the company whether that’s possible or not.
While that is certainly good it misses the point of the whole crypto space. Which is, we don’t have to place that trust in the company since the blockchain will still run even if the guys who built it went for vacation a couple of months. Now if all the stakepools went AWOL at the same time, that’s a different story.
What’s aUST?
Your ticket to redeem deposited UST+Interest.