We believe financial freedom for the next generation can be stable, reliable, trusted and untethered from existing assets. It’s our vision to be the breakthrough digital currency, widely accepted globally.
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We believe financial freedom for the next generation can be stable, reliable, trusted and untethered from existing assets. It’s our vision to be the breakthrough digital currency, widely accepted globally.
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We believe the largest obstacle to the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies is price volatility. Cryptocurrencies, unlike fiat currencies, do not have a central bank to implement monetary policy focused on stabilizing purchasing power. Thus, changes in demand induce massive price fluctuations. The decentralized model to price discovery has made the majority of existing cryptocurrencies nothing more than stocks or commodities, valued on psychology, traded on unregulated stock markets, and susceptible to manipulation. The lack of price stability has prevented credit and debt markets from forming because volatility incurs a premium. While the rest of the industry focuses on transaction throughput and smart contracts, we focus on solving price stability to realize the economic capabilities that the blockchain enables.
In this paper, we introduce Centric Rise, a cryptocurrency with low-volatility, and predictable returns.
Each unit of Centric Rise is pegged to trade for a predetermined and increasing value over time, denominated in USD. This model is similar to the monetary policy executed by central banks, except as a protocol-enforced algorithm, with economy experts initially acting as oracles to the blockchain and transparently setting the price a year in advance. For this reason, in the near term, Centric can be understood as implementing a transparent central bank with predictable price growth.
Centric Rise is a new class of digital currency that does not match with existing coins or stablecoins. It is not a fully free-traded token, and it does not meet the standard definition of a stablecoin, either. Centric’s nominal value is steady but does experience “effective” price fluctuations due to its freely traded ecosystem token, Centric Swap (CNS). The nominal value is supported through its predicted price progression as well as the ecosystem of applications that use Centric Rise as their currency. Through these methods, Centric Rise addresses the volatility and price fluctuations experienced by first-generation virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, without being dependent on an underlying asset such as the USD or gold. By eliminating the dependency on the stability of other assets, Centric Rise is markedly different from any other digital asset that has so far been launched.
To provide liquidity on the free market in the early stages, Centric Rise has issued a freely traded token known as Centric Swap. Centric Swap is a low-volatility, zero-sum cryptocurrency, created and destroyed on-demand to facilitate the liquidity of Centric Rise. Users may obtain Centric Swap by buying it from licensed brokers, exchanges, or by converting Centric Rise to Centric Swap using the decentralized and immutable Centric convert protocol. Centric Swap is pegged to 1.00 USD worth of Centric Rise on the convert protocol but is not backed by any assets, setting it apart from stablecoins.
Centric Rise is designed for individuals, businesses, and governments who want to use a manipulation proof currency that is not speculative. The design of Centric Rise is catered to mass adoption, ease of use and limitless application. Partnerships, apps, and utilities will increase value, transaction volume, and utility. Through application, integration, and partnerships, market demand will increase organically.
The cryptocurrency industry claims that it is creating a new form of store of value, yet, the volatility of the market and the intangibility of the assets have shown the dangers of this type of thinking. While it is clear why people want to get away from fiat currencies that can be devalued the current iterations of cryptocurrency have not addressed people’s main concern: how to keep their value safe.
Fiat currencies are under threat in many jurisdictions. The move to a cashless society favors control by financial institutions and governments, rather than the people. Because of this, it’s no wonder that people are looking for safe alternatives to store their money, but the current cryptocurrency market is not yet showing it can be relied upon.
Centric Rise is designed for everyone who wants to use a currency that has a clear future value and is non-speculative. Initial early adopters come from all backgrounds and are looking for alternatives to fiat currency as well as alternatives to speculative and volatile cryptocurrencies. The design of Centric Rise is for mass adoption, ease of use and multiple applications. The Centric team is creating partnerships, apps, and utilities that will increase adoption, exchange volume, and utility of the token over time. Through these apps and partnerships, the market will increase organically through the use of the token on multiple services.
Centric Rise is a cryptocurrency built on an entirely new economic model, designed with two major advantages over other currencies. First, the value is designed to increase hourly. Second, an ecosystem of apps, dApps, and services architectured to provide utility and demand.
Cryptocurrencies are rarely relied on for everyday transactions. Possibly because they have, so far, been expensive, slow, and cumbersome to manage.
Things are changing on this front with protocols like Dash, which claims to be able to confirm transactions in less than one second, and to handle thousands of transactions per second for less than fifteen cents each and going down.
Another possible reason for not using cryptocurrency for normal transactions is the lack of reliability or security. This, too, is changing with the many new protocols that have firm backing from respected investors and strong development teams. Bitcoin itself has proven that the blockchain model is extremely resilient to faults over its ten-year history.
It’s also possible that cryptocurrency is not widely used due to the lack of adoption by merchants – but this theory fails to hold water as well since there is almost no overhead to merchants in accepting digital currency and it is logical for merchants to support any payment method that customers want to give them. In fact, digital currencies are far more immune to chargebacks and charge lower transaction fees, so merchants would naturally prefer them.
The real problem can be found through examining the perspectives of the parties to the transaction in turn.
First, let’s consider the merchants who do accept digital currency payments now, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Hotels.com. These integrate BitPay into their platforms, allowing customers to pay using Bitcoin. But none of these merchants actually keep their money in Bitcoin – instead, they immediately convert all accounts receivable to USD. Why? The answer is obvious: the price of Bitcoin is not stable, and merchants are not traders who want to speculate on whether the asset will go up or down. Liu and Tsyvinski quantify the risks present in the largest cryptocurrencies, showing how they vary 37-58% from month to month. Most businesses aren’t willing to risk a 5% variance on a multimillion overnight payment, much less tolerate holding cryptocurrency in the face of large potential swings. Just as they wouldn’t hold their money in barrels of oil, they are not likely to hold digital currency for any length of time, since the value could drop suddenly and drastically, putting them in a difficult cash flow position. Even those who support and promote cryptocurrency are unlikely to keep their cash reserves or quarterly revenues in this asset.
Second, let’s imagine trying to make a purchase using a wildly fluctuating asset like Bitcoin – you won’t know how much the item costs from minute to minute, and you worry that you’re going to spend the asset at a low point when you could have held on and gotten a better bargain. This is a terrible dilemma for the user and adds complexity to the already difficult process of deciding on the right product. Or imagine getting paid 1 Bitcoin per month for your job – one month you have enough for all your bills, and the next you fall short.
Finally, imagine borrowing money on a loan that demands a 1 Bitcoin payment every month. If the price swings up drastically, you might not be able to pull together enough to make the payment that month. Fundamentally, the problem is that today’s price-volatile digital currencies subject any contract promising or taking future payments to extreme price risk. Therefore, we can see that in order for digital currencies to become a viable medium of exchange or unit of account, we need to achieve price stability.
All currencies have six fundamental purposes:
Centric Rise is the first cryptocurrency to implement a robust, decentralized, and protocol-enforced solution to price stability. Our goal in this whitepaper is to show that Centric Rise can, in fact, achieve all six fundamental purposes.
Specifically, we discuss the following topics:
The internet has brought a great deal of wealth to the world, but it hasn’t resulted in shared prosperity. In spite of the billions of people globally who can now access the world’s knowledge and information at a reasonable cost, there remain large swaths of the world’s population who are left behind because they remain outside the financial system, with no access to a traditional bank. Most of the world’s population can communicate across the world with a smartphone, but access to financial services is limited or restricted for those who need it most — those impacted by cost, reliability, and the ability to seamlessly send money.
Centralized or fiat-backed stablecoins are the most popular stablecoin designs in the market since their inception in 2014. These projects are typically run by a private organization and issue tokens in exchange for the deposit of their respective currencies. Legal problems have drastically stunted stablecoin growth. The majority of issues have come from the exchange from traditional fiat currency to centralized stablecoin issuers, prompting the need for on-chain solutions.
A good example of a stablecoin that is popular but has encountered legal hurdles, Tether, issued by Tether Limited, is at the forefront of the stablecoin debate. Their path is one clouded by legal concerns around collateralization. After a long and drawn-out process, they recently admitted that their coins only 74% collateralized. Tether’s competitors, all of whom claim to be fully audited, face a different set of red tape problems. Circle USD, for example, is a regulated entity that does not serve anyone from restricted territories listed under the United States Export Administration Regulations. While they help to prevent money laundering and terrorism, this essentially means that stablecoins are not going to solve the problem of banking the unbanked. Their structure also prevents the use of the coin as a safe haven against hyperinflation . This presents another problem that decentralized price-stable coins are likely to capitalize on.
Along with political restrictions, existing stablecoins also block a range of financial activities that are vital to a currency used as the backbone of an economy.
Circle, for example, lists the following restrictions on the currency in section 24 of its terms of service:
The first stablecoins were created as a way for day traders to store the value of their deposited funds or accumulated wealth on trading platforms that don’t support fiat. Without the stablecoin, these traders, who earn their income from locking in profits through daily or hourly trades, had no way to protect their gains, since the only instruments available to them were wildly volatile digital currencies. Stablecoins can function as a bridge since they are technically a digital currency but have the stable properties of a fiat currency. Some of the most popular crypto trading platforms did not accept bank transfers or any other form of fiat money on their system – and many of them still do not.
A few large international trading platforms like Bitfinex do give their customers the ability to store fiat money directly. They still support stablecoins, though, since stablecoins give their customers the ability to reduce losses caused by large spreads between bid and ask in an illiquid market.
When trading a large amount of cryptocurrency in a limited liquidity environment, traders who sell run a risk of experiencing negative slippage. By contrast, converting speculative tokens to stablecoins means the trader incurs only the transaction costs for centrally managed stablecoins or stability fees for decentralized stablecoins. These are all use cases solving real needs in the market that stablecoins were thought to meet. Unfortunately, they have so far failed to live up to the promise, and a new solution is needed.
In the future, the most efficient decentralized price-stable currencies will provide this needed bridge and be proof against loss of value. A price-stable coin provides traders with the means to manage their portfolio effectively, and traders continue to be the early adopters, ambassadors, and fanatics for cryptocurrency. Because of this, we see the initial demand for Centric coming from this group.
The volatility of cryptocurrencies makes them unsuitable for basic financial contracts like a mortgage or lease agreement. For example, a 30-year mortgage denominated in BTC and paid in dollars would mean the price of the house could become nearly any amount. Typically, lenders inherit the primary risk of mortgage default. With Bitcoin as a payment method, the lender is exposed to additional, extreme price risk. If the price of Bitcoin drops 90% once in the next 30 years, they’ve got a default on their hands and a family could lose their home. Realistically, for a deal to go through, the lender must either speculate on the price of Bitcoin in every loan they offer for the entire duration of the mortgage term or must find a speculator who will. Hedging the price risk also costs a premium to whoever is shielded from the risk. This friction does not exist in a price-stable currency: rather, credit and debt markets see a reduction in costs and an increase in liquidity for all sorts of financial instruments when anchored on a price-stable currency.
Numerous blockchain thought leaders believe that the ecosystem of blockchain apps is on the horizon. From a decentralized ridesharing app to e-commerce projects, existing centralized services will be replaced by their decentralized counterparts. When these projects arrive, each will come with its own token, creating the need for a universal token to enable interchange between them. It’s expected that the universal token will auto-convert in and out of native tokens as transactions take place, in real-time, at market rates. This is similar to using a debit card while travelling in a foreign country. You don’t think about it, but each time you swipe your card, a conversion is happening between your native currency and the currency of the country you are in. When these apps arrive, it’s important that there is a price-stable currency for them to build around. Your bus ticket tomorrow can’t cost $1 today and $35 tomorrow. Volatility has prevented Bitcoin from standing in as a viable store of value. If you believe that blockchain apps will build the next global economy, you may also see that a price-stable currency will be needed to facilitate exchange.
The price of the Centric Rise token increases hourly. The value of the Centric Rise tokens is set 12 months in advance with a scaled increase in value for each month.
The token price growth is controlled in advance by the Centric team. The value is not a projected value, but the actual value the price will be forced to trade at, controlled at the point of exchange.
Centric addresses volatility by design, allowing the price to increase over time in a managed way. At the same time, Centric is subject to immutable protocol mechanisms that are able to react to real-time supply and demand.
In this section, we explore the following topics:
The Centric protocol defines two classes of tokens, Centric Rise and Centric Swap. Together, the two tokens balance aggregate demand through a relationship with autonomous feedback mechanisms. Combined with appropriately incentivized external actors, the dynamics of the two-token system act to maintain the agreed rate of return of Centric Rise while stabilizing the value of Centric Swap. We believe that a highly liquid digital asset with low-volatility and predictable returns is essential to realizing high-utility and acceptance as a functional currency. In the next section, we define each token in the protocol explicitly.
Centric Swap is intended to be used as a medium of exchange, providing the Centric protocol with transactional compatibility to the existing blockchain ecosystem.
It has four other key features which set it apart:
Centric Rise is a deflationary currency providing predictable returns, and acting as a robust form of value storage.
It has eight other key features which set it apart:
In the diagram below, we illustrate the flow of the tokens in the Centric network.
It’s important to understand that the Centric protocol acts predictably and in a manner that is not directly correlated to any other asset. The monthly nominal rate of return is the primary lever for monetary policy across the network and dictates Centric’s hourly price increases. It is calculated differently across two phases of the project. Initially, the monetary policy is predetermined and formally written to the blockchain one year into the future, each hour when a price block is used. Later on, after amassing enough trust and network value for the currency to self-stabilize, we will decentralize the oracle and peg the token to its absolute value. The absolute value of the token will be algorithmically determined using a methodology similar to the Fisher Effect equation, but uniquely modified to incorporate the effects of deflationary mechanisms. These were not needed previously because there were no solutions to verifiably deflating a currency.
Adoption/Growth Phase
During the adoption/growth phase, economy experts will act as an oracle to the protocol and execute monetary policy.
The economy experts have the following mandate:
Sustainable Phase
Once the network utility of Centric Rise is fully realized, it will enter the sustainable growth phase where the base monthly nominal rate of return will be ungoverned and algorithmically determined with a fixed base of 0.333% per month (approximately 4% per annum, compounding monthly). The base rate will then be subject to the built-in deflationary mechanisms of the system. We will delve further into Friedman’s rule in future whitepapers.
The protocol values and exchanges Centric Swap for Centric at a value of 1.00 USD, translating to a 1:1 USD peg. The market capitalization of Centric Swap indicates the aggregate demand for Centric.
One may ask, how can we be assured that exchange rates of Centric Swap will be stable?
When the market price of Centric Swap deviates from the target price in the short-run, the mechanisms inherent in the Centric protocol mitigate the instability.
For example, if the market price of Centric Swap is above $1 USD, holders of Centric Rise receive an incentive for liquidating. As a result, we should see the market price of Centric Swap pull down towards the $1 USD target price. Alternatively, if the market price of Centric Swap is below $1 USD, users wanting to enter the Centric Rise Token will get a discount for purchasing Centric Swap, and Centric Rise thereafter.
An additional group that can be expected to maintain buy pressure on the market rate of Centric Swap is that of speculative cryptocurrency traders. As long as traders trust the immutable protocol to honor the hardcoded $1 USD peg, they become arbitrageurs and steadily drive the price of the Centric Swap token closer to the $1 USD peg with each trade.
The market price of Centric Swap indicates the aggregate demand for Centric Rise and represents the perceived sustainability of its future value. As long as speculators perceive sustainability, we should expect only small deviations in token price around any peg.
Centric Rise tokens are designed to increase in value over time. The value increase is performed consistently through a mechanism of burning tokens. The more transactions, conversions, and adoption that take place, the faster Centric tokens are burned out of circulation. As the tokens gain utility through the ecosystem, the velocity of use will result in improved liquidity. The Centric Rise tokens value is not dictated by the volatile cryptocurrency markets today, or any market for that matter; rather it is built into the token design and carefully calculated the rise in the price based on how the project is forecasted to perform. At present the token increases at 28.5% value per month. Over time this is expected to drop as the project achieves more liquidity and utility.
Anyone holding Centric Rise tokens has a share in the economic success of the entire ecosystem. The power of numbers can have such a huge impact on the community. The Centric community now has over 85,000 members with about 250 new members joining daily.
The full minting of 1 billion Centric Rise tokens took place in the early 2020 and is complete. At the time of minting, approximately 8 million of the tokens were already burned due to activity on the forked cryptocurrency, UPDC which has more than 80,000 participants and operated for 2 years previously.
To support the community, Centric is creating several Tier 2 solutions that will immediately create additional utility for the token.
The initial Centric projects are built through the Centric network of developers and are designed to add value to the system both in providing the utility of the Centric Rise token.
The different utilities drive transaction volume necessary to support the full ecosystem.
The wallet provides a place to store Centric Rise & Swap allowing members to send, receive and convert. Additional features in the future will include the ability to find businesses that accept Centric Rise, Tap & GO for in-store purchases, send gift certificates to friends and family. The wallet will be the hub of Centric.
A community-owned gambling website, all profits are paid out daily to members that stake Centric tokens. Focused on fairness and sustainability, Moolah.bet has a huge strategic advantage over its competitors in the space because Centric tokens rise in value. Members that wager are rewarded Centric Rise tokens based on their level of play.
A nonprofit organization, Crypto Donation allows anyone to donate a range of cryptocurrencies to their charity of choice. Built with a major focus on transparency, the public would be able to inspect contracts and track and trace transactions.
Any business around the world can easily set up a Centric Business account and start accepting payments.
Customers will have a range of traditional licensed and regulated products and services accessible locally.
The Centric roadmap includes the release of the SDK/API and test network for 3rd party app developers to connect to Centric and create their own apps.
The Developer Hub will provide documentation, news, support, and discussion for working with Centric.
The Centric Protocol defines two classes of tokens, Centric Rise and Centric Swap. The first, Centric Rise, is traded across the Centric payment network and steadily increases in price hourly. The second, Centric Swap is pegged to Centric Rise and trades freely on cryptocurrency exchanges. Together, the two tokens balance aggregate demand through a symbiotic relationship with autonomous feedback mechanisms. The dynamics of the protocol act to maintain the agreed price of Centric Rise while stabilizing the value of Centric Swap.
Centric Rise (CNR) is a deflationary currency traded across the Centric payment network. Each unit of Centric Rise is pegged to trade at an agreed price denominated in USD which is enforced by the protocol at the point of exchange. The Centric Rise token is governed by the Centric Rise smart contract.
Centric Swap (CNS) is traded freely on cryptocurrency exchanges at a price dictated by the market. It provides liquidity to the Centric payment network through transactional compatibility to existing currency ecosystems. Centric Swap is minted and burnt on demand in exchange for Centric Rise. The Centric Swap token is governed by the Centric Swap smart contract.
The Centric Protocol is governed by the Centric Rise smart contract. The Centric Protocol cannot be updated once deployed.
CNR and CNS are BEP20 standard tokens implemented on the BSC blockchain.
At deployment of the Centric Protocol:
The price of CNR is provided by the Centric Rise smart contract and dictates the current trading price of CNR across the Centric payment network. It is read from immutable ‘Price Blocks’ stored on chain that are published in advance.
Price Blocks store the current, future and past prices of CNR. Each Price Block is referenced by a Block Number that corresponds to a distinct hour in time denoted in hours since Unix epoch. Price Blocks can be read by any user. Each Price Block contains:
The immutable protocol dictates:
The creation of a Price Block is triggered by the Centric team and executed by an immutable formula stored on the Centric Rise smart contract. The immutable formula dictates:
The Future Growth Rate is a network variable expressed as a percentage stored by the protocol, it dictates the future monthly nominal price growth of CNR. The Future Growth Rate is controlled by the Centric team.
Any token holder can exchange CNR for CNS and vice-versa. The immutable protocol dictates:
When CNR is exchanged for CNS, it is held in quarantine on the Centric Rise smart contract. Conversely, when CNS is exchanged for CNR, CNR is released from quarantine.
The immutable protocol dictates:
Every hour the price of CNR increases to its next predetermined price, resulting in the network capitalization of CNR held in quarantine to increase. This creates a mismatch breaking the rules of the protocol. Subsequently CNR is burnt from the smart contract equal to the mismatch to balance the network.
A description of public read-only methods exposed by the protocol. These methods return key information about the state of the network. Public read-only methods can be called by any user at any time.
A description of public variables exposed by the protocol. These variables return key information about the state of the network stored on the smart contract. Public variables can be viewed by any user at any time.
A description of public methods exposed by the protocol that can be invoked by verified users and results in a state-change to the network.
A description of admin of methods that can only be invoked by the contract owner and results in a state-change to the network.
A description of internal methods called within the protocol that can only be invoked by the protocol itself and results in a state-change to the network.
A description of events recorded by the protocol. Events are a convenient way to record historical state-changes to the network.
Centric initially launched on the Ethereum blockchain. Escalating gas fees led to a move to TRON in December 2018. After re-evaluating the competitive blockchain landscape, Centric migrated to Binance Smart Chain (BSC) in July 2021.
Binance launched BSC in April 2020. The reputation of the Binance brand helped the BSC quickly rise to prominence as the third largest blockchain measured by unique active wallets.
The “smart” in the name refers to the blockchain’s smart contract capability. As a hard fork of Ethereum’s Go Ethereum (Geth) protocol, BSC offers compatibility with Ethereum’s large ecosystem of dApps and tools. BSC uses a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism, resulting in quicker, cheaper transactions than Ethereum.
Operating on Binance Smart Chain offers projects higher visibility and the potential to attract more highly-aligned partnership opportunities and other integrations.
Central banks are tasked with three primary goals: stabilize the nation’s currency, keep unemployment low, and control inflation. Typically, the United States’ Federal Reserve has done an adequate job in stabilizing the value of the USD. By pegging Centric and Centric Swap to the USD, the currencies inherit the efforts of the Federal Reserve in stabilizing USD. Because both tokens are both denominated in USD through the same oracle, they benefit from perfect symmetry in the exchange rate. But what if Centric gains significant traction, acquiring a significant user base, becoming as prevalent as the large payment networks, and achieving more transaction volume than USD? Then, Centric would present the world with a transparent and stable monetary policy, unlike anything that’s ever been possible via central banks.
What would this mean for the future?
Centric Rise would have to participate in a large percentage of the money transfers that occur globally before we can assume that goods will be denominated in Centric Rise. If this were to happen, Centric’s peg would have to be updated. We will track the value of Centric Rise through a basket of goods, priced in Centric Rise. The Fed does something similar, stabilizing the rate of the USD against the consumer price index (CPI).
Imagine that Bitcoin starts competing with the USD in network utility. You would get paid in Bitcoin but pay your mortgage in USD, or perhaps vice versa. This just doesn’t make sense given Bitcoin’s inherent volatility.
In this paper, we introduced Centric Rise and Centric Swap, a price-stable financial framework. We believe that if we can make a digital currency whose purchasing power doesn’t fluctuate, people will shift from a mindset in which they hold as little cryptocurrency as possible, to a mindset in which they are comfortable holding their savings or revenue in cryptocurrency. We believe this contribution will trigger a new adoption cycle for cryptocurrencies, helping them transition into functional currencies.
This Document is not a prospectus and does not constitute nor implies a prospectus of any sort. No wording contained within this document should be construed as a solicitation for investment. Accordingly, this whitepaper does not pertain in any way to an offering of securities in any jurisdiction worldwide whatsoever.
Rather, this whitepaper constitutes a technical description of the functionality of the Centric ecosystem and the creation, development, and deployment of the Centric Rise token, Centric Swap token and Centric ecosystem.
Before investing you should seek independent financial advice.
Learn how to join Centric and get up running in the Centric economy.
Get answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Information on how to get in touch with the Centric team.
Centric Swap (CNS) is available at the following exchanges.
Decentralized
Multi-chain DEx
Decentralized
CNS/BNB
For more information read the getting started guide.
