POA Network’s newly launched xDai Chain is now the first blockchain with a USD-stable native currency.

According to an October 18th Medium post from POA Network, the xDai Chain is compatible with Ethereum and features XDAI as the native network currency thanks to a partnership with MakerDAO.

MakerDAO’s Dai stablecoin is kept at $1 through a system of price feeds and collateral. POA Network describes itself as a “public platform for smart contracts” and an Ethereum sidechain with Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus.

POA Network says the xDai Chain will use a PoA consensus model and will have block times of five seconds.

Opening Up New Possibilities

According to POA Network, a smart contracts platform with XDAI functioning as a native currency will open up new use case possibilities, including micropayments, insurance, and lending.

Additionally, the new blockchain will have the “support of all the tools of the Ethereum ecosystem.” This include hardware wallets, blockchain explorers, and smart contract libraries.

MakerDAO CEO Rune Christensen remarks how xDai Chain gives developers an “awesome opportunity” to use Dai as the medium of exchange if they want to launch DApps.

On the new xDai Chain, the native cryptocurrency will be known as XDAI.

Transaction fees will be in Dai and gas costs could be as low as 1 Gwei per transaction. POA Network says the five second block time will result in a 60 tx/s transaction speed.

Notably, the fixing of transaction fees in Dai represents “the first time ever” that developers will “now have known gas costs fixed in USD terms.”

The POA Network team believes this feature will help developers and chain users “more certainty” when it comes to trying to determine the USD cost of utilizing a blockchain based on Ethereum.

MakerDAO Caught Up In Controversy

In late September, MakerDao found themselves at the center of controversy after 6% of their MKR tokens were purchased by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The announcement of the deal caught the eye of Meltem Demirors, who raised some questions about the sale via Twitter.

Part of her commentary focused on why a large amount of tokens were sold without prior consultation with other MKR holders or the larger Maker community. 

CryptoGlobe also reported on October 1st how Andreessen Horowitz general partner Kathryn Haun would be in charge of managing the investment into MKR.