Ever since its announcement, Nigeria’s Patricia crypto exchange, increasingly growing popular, presented its new Patricia Token (PTK) with a wave of scepticism reflected in followers’ reactions. The novelty of the operation met with suspicion, leading the crypto exchange to offer clarity by publishing a white paper that endeavours to expound the proposed function of the Patricia Token.
According to the released document, it states that the Patricia Token is more of a debt token rather than a stable coin. The function of PTK is primarily to manage users’ debt. The crypto exchange likens its operations to an IOU (I owe you) system that acknowledges its debt to users and promises to pay holders 1 USDT for each Patricia token in the future.
Yet, a significant incident in Patricia’s past casts a shadow on the company’s ambitions. The company had a standstill in its operations, halting withdrawals, and deposits due to a breach in April 2023. This event left its customers unable to access their funds for months, with the introduction of the Patricia Token raising more questions than answers. These users are particularly concerned as to how the token was backed and resent the fact that Patricia converted their own funds without their prior consent, they also ponder over when and how they will regain access to their own funds.
Despite the backlash, Patricia has tried to reassure its customers by stating in the published white paper that the people whose BTC and naira balances have been converted into PTK have a choice to redeem it for USDT. This USDT can subsequently be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or fiat like the naira. Any conversions will be determined by the asset’s US dollar value as of April 29, 2023.
Patricia also plans to launch a new app called Patricia Plus which will provide customers who had incurred losses due to the breach, access to PTK tokens that will serve as their debt tokens. They have further initiated actions like Bitfinex who issued BFX, a debt token to compensate customers affected by a hack that resulted in the loss of $72 million back in 2016.
In conclusion, the truth is that while the whitepaper provides insight into the functionality of the Patricia Token, it has fallen somewhat short of answering the burning questions faced by many of the exchange’s long-standing users. Nonetheless, Patricia’s attempts to demonstrate transparency may sooth some trepidation, it seems very clear that the future success of the Patricia Token will take more than just a semblance of clarity.
Source: Cointelegraph
