Prevent Debasement

A devastating problem that occurred with the token of the original project (MIX) was that it was debased by a centralized exchange between 2019 and 2020, ultimately crashing the price to 0 in May 2020.

Something that is not understood by almost everyone is that once a fungible asset has been listed on a centralized exchange, the operators of that exchange have the technical ability to create extra currency simply by editing their database.

For example, when Bitcoin is deposited into a centralized exchange, the exchange operators receive real BTC and the depositor is credited with "BTC" that is just an entry in the database of the exchange. Once this "paper" BTC is considered by the community to be equivalent to real BTC, the exchange operator essentially has root access to the BTC supply.

When Mt. Gox was erroneously crediting failed BTC deposits the effective circulation of BTC was increased beyond that hard-coded in the node software. FTX were deliberately fractional reserve, debasing all coins listed on their exchange several times over, with the possible exception of Solana.

Debasememnt of cryptocurrencies is typically at its highest at the top of the bull market. Once all the fraudulent exchanges start to collapse in the bear market the debasement is reduced, preparing the long term fundamentals for the next bull market and so the cycle continues.

While Bitcoin continues to be listed on centralized exchanges, the gospel that there can only be 21 million BTC is a fantasy.

Perhaps the reason why ZEC has performed terribly since its inception, whereas XMR has been solid is because centralized exchanges are debasing ZEC to buy XMR?

When MIX was launched in 2016, the attitude was that once the asset was created the free market would simply allow it to trade and find its value by itself. This proved to be incorrect. First of all, getting listed on an exchange was not a given. Getting access to the market required raising significant funds to pay for a listing on a major exchange. Secondly, it was essential to "be in bed" with the exchange to make sure that they debase someone else instead of you.

Now, in 2025 the enviroment is completely different. The attitude is that the free market will allow ACU to trade and find its value by itself. This is because we now have cross-chain decentralized exchanges such as Hydration.