We expect AnyHedge over time to build liquidity, volume and adoption, and become a significant part of the BitcoinCash ecosystem. Once sufficient volume is achieved, we expect it to have the following effects:
AnyHedge allows merchants to seek stability at low cost or even profit, while simultaneously retaining all the benefits of Bitcoin Cash. Wider adoption by merchants will strengthen the permissionless nature of the ecosystem.
Currently the dominant use case for cryptocurrencies is speculation. In particular, leveraged speculation with cryptocurrencies, as seen at BitMEX, is very popular with millions of dollars of volume each day looking to take on additional risk. These speculators are currently exposed to censorship and custodial risk where the exchanges may freeze or confiscate their funds. Furthermore the custodians are typically exposed to counterparty risks and costs such as insurance for leveraged defaults during unexpectedly large volatility. AnyHedge provides an alternative, non-custodial and trustless way for speculators to increase their exposure to volatility.
In addition to simple upward price pressure, we expect widespread use of Bitcoin Cash-denominated AnyHedge contracts to increase demand for Bitcoin Cash as collateral, directly impacting long term viability as peer-to-peer electronic cash. Note that this is contrary to fiat-denominated derivatives, which drain demand from cryptocurrencies. This effect should be especially apparent in contracts hedging against other speculative assets such as precious metals and alternative cryptocurrencies, where Bitcoin Cash absorbs speculative demand from their overall spot markets.
We take the reliability of our protocols very seriously, so we had a third party do a mathematical analysis of the AnyHedge protocol.