In Cheyenne, members of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission attended their second-to-last meeting on July 17. Commissioners reviewed rules, discussed federal legislation and demonstrated the token itself.
Director Anthony Apollo performed testnet transactions on Polygon and Stargate for those attending in person and online. The transactions held no value, but allowed Apollo to tout fast transaction speeds and low fees.
He performed two types of transactions: Peer-to-peer, which are exchanges of digital currency between two individuals, and a bridge transaction, which in this case destroys, or “burns,” a number of tokens on one blockchain system and mints that same amount on a different blockchain system.
Once live, users will be able to perform transactions themselves for any legal purpose, from paying for services or buying a pizza, to paying taxes, or purchasing weapons within legal bounds. It will require a virtual wallet that can operate with the blockchain vendors selected by the commission. When it’s live, the token will be issued by and purchased from blockchain vendors, not the state or commission itself.
After one more special meeting, the commission will travel to Jackson Hole for the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium. From there, they’ll launch the Wyoming Stable Token (WYST), a fiat-backed virtual currency worth $1 U.S. on Aug. 20.
For the most part, Apollo indicated the commission is now ironing out the legal, administrative and rule-making details. The token still has some testing remaining, but much of the heavy lifting in this process has been carried out in the past few years.
“ We're trying to marry the traditional financial system to this whole new space. That's not something that's really been done at scale before in the public sector, “ said Apollo.
Apollo described the efforts to create a dollar-backed stable token as highly complex. He said the mathematics behind getting any kind of digital asset up and running on a blockchain becomes “fractal math” at a certain point. Those complex calculations and vast amounts of data have to be tested to ensure they can operate smoothly in a financial system that runs off physical dollars.
In total, the process to create the Wyoming Stable Token has taken nearly a decade, with efforts to make the state more crypto-friendly dating back to 2016. Apollo said it was vitally important for Wyoming to get it right the first time around.
“ It's also a great responsibility to get it done right, because if this goes sideways, does someone else take three-quarters of the work that Wyoming has done at taxpayer expense and run with it?” said Apollo.
Apollo said the commission has spent about $1.6 million out of its $5.8 million budget.
On top of getting it right, there's also making it legal. Some cryptocurrencies have been used for nefarious purposes in the past. Apollo, aware of this, said they have to make sure the token isn't being used for things like drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Apollo said the commission will work with law enforcement to do so. But a large selling point about new digital currencies is the convenience and anonymity of crypto. Apollo said First Amendment rights are called into question when people start “reaching into your coffers,” or in the case of crypto, freezing someone’s funds.
“ Any lawful use, good to go. And if we're gonna start doing any kind of interdiction, it has to be downstream of a valid court order. We really should not be acting outside of that remit,” said Apollo. He added that despite the complex legal questions around this topic, getting rules and policy “right” matters now so that future officials don’t abuse the token.
In the past, a public commenter asked about the energy usage of the stable token. Their concern was that stable tokens, like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, would require a huge amount of energy to perform the calculations necessary for blockchain mining to work.
However, Wyoming Stable Tokens are minted, not mined as Bitcoins are. Asking Apollo if he knew how much energy was used to process transactions that take just milliseconds, he said, ” You've used more energy in this interview by orders of magnitude.”
The commission's next meeting is a special meeting scheduled for Aug. 4.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
