The Twitter account of Vivek Ramaswamy, head of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, was confirmed to have been hacked, and false statements were issued to mislead the market to trade the USUAL stablecoin, causing its price to soar by more than 27% on Friday (December 20).
According to James Fishback, founder of Invest Azoria, Vivek’s Twitter account has been hacked and a false statement has been posted, claiming that the U.S. government efficiency department has reached a cooperation with stablecoin issuer USUAL to reduce the federal fiscal deficit and promote cryptocurrency initiatives.
Fishback confirmed that the claim was false and Vivek has been locked out of his account.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the price of the USUAL stablecoin skyrocketed over 27%, rising to $1.51.
USUAL is a stablecoin protocol backed by fiat currency, planning to launch USD0 (a permissionless and fully compliant stablecoin backed 1:1 by real-world assets (RWA)), as well as USUAL (a governance token that allows the community to guide the future development of the network).
By redistributing profits to the community, USUAL aims to address current issues in the stablecoin market by rewarding token holders with real yields generated from RWA.
Ledger Insights points out that USUAL is a new stablecoin protocol that, in less than four months since its launch, saw its market cap surpass $1 billion yesterday. This week, its market cap reached $1.15 billion, making it the seventh-largest stablecoin. The stablecoin is fully backed by Hashnote, which is a tokenized money market fund (MMF) established by the founder of DRW.
On Thursday, Usual announced that it will begin implementing reserve diversification, including a new USDtb stablecoin from Ethena, which is backed by BlackRock's BUIDL money market fund.
USUAL has established a long-term roadmap focused on expanding its ecosystem, enhancing user experience, and promoting deeper integration with various blockchain networks. Future updates are expected to bring more features and improvements to its platform.
According to CoinGecko analysis, Usual Labs is the French company behind USUAL, founded by Pierre Person, Hugo Salle de Chou, and Adli Takkal Bataille, who currently serve as CEO, COO, and Chief Design Officer respectively. In April 2024, Usual Labs successfully raised $7 million and secured a total locked value (TVL) commitment of $75 million from over 100 investors.
This round of financing was co-led by IOSG Ventures and Kraken Ventures, while also involving industry participants such as Mantle, Bing Ventures, Kima Ventures, and X Ventures. USUAL has also received support from over 150 investors, including Curve founder Michael Egorov, Frax founder Sam, and Charlie from DefiLlama and Curve.
According to the company, by connecting RWA with the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, Usual is able to further enhance the liquidity of traditional illiquid assets and make it easier for more investors to access these assets. The project's mission stems from the observation that although RWA is on the rise, integrating it into DeFi remains a challenge. According to the team, despite the launch of new products including on-chain U.S. Treasury bills, there are fewer than 5,000 RWA holders on the mainnet.
