POA Network has launched the first ever blockchain where the native currency of the chain is USD-stable. xDai Chain, an Ethereum compatible sidechain with Dai as the native currency of the network, combines POA Network’s interoperability knowledge and technology with MakerDAO’s Dai, the permissionless, crypto-collateralized USD-stable coin.

xDai Chain has the support of all the tools of the Ethereum ecosystem, including mobile and hardware wallets, blockchain explorers like BlockScout, and libraries of smart contracts. We think that a platform for smart contracts with Dai as the native currency will open unlimited new possibilities for many use cases, such as micropayments, lending, insurance, and overall developer experience.

“With xDai Chain, POA created a full tool kit for DApp developers looking to improve the end user experience by allowing people to transact with high scalability and pay gas fees in a single token,” said Rune Christensen, CEO and co founder of MakerDAO. “xDai Chain creates an awesome opportunity for developers to launch DApps with Dai as the medium of exchange.”

POA Network’s expertise with sidechains to Ethereum and interoperability between networks created the Token Bridge between POA Network and Ethereum which was launched into production in May 2018 and has been operational since then, with over 33 million POA transformed.

POA recently built a new type of the Token Bridge (“ERC20 <-> Native”) where locked ERC20 tokens on Ethereum network will mint native tokens on a new empty (“hard spoon”) sidechain launched with no emission or premine.

“xDai Chain provides an exciting and new platform for the community and DApp developers. The premise of a stable coin based blockchain opens up endless possibilities for developers and applications” said Igor Barinov, Tech Lead of POA Network. “Using the different tools POA Network has created, users can bridge their Dai to the new xDai Chain and start using a single token for their transactions while making use of the benefits of a PoA based sidechain”

On xDai Chain, the native coin will be referred to as XDAI, resulting in transaction fees being fixed in Dai, or USD effectively. This new blockchain will leverage POA Network’s technology allowing it to be fast, scalable, and cost-efficient. A five second block generation time will result in transaction speeds of 60 tx/s. With gas costs as low as 1 Gwei per transaction, 500 transactions on the xDai chain will cost less than 1 cent.

For the first time ever, developers can now have known gas costs fixed in USD terms. This gives all xDai Chain users and developers more certainty around the USD cost of using an Ethereum-based blockchain.