Why usual?
Stablecoins can be said to be the foundation of the cryptocurrency industry. People need stablecoins as a use case for large-scale payments, and stablecoins also play a key role in the industry's Mass Adoption. As of July 30, 2024, the total market value of stablecoins is $168B, and from the stablecoin market value overview chart below, it can be seen that the two major centralized stablecoins, USDT and USDC, together account for about 90% of the total market value of stablecoins.
Source: Defillama, data as of July 30, 2024
Stablecoins are the money-printing machines of Crypto. The two giants, Tether and Circle, generated more than $10 billion in revenue in 2023, with a valuation of more than $200 billion. Tether made a record profit of $4.52 billion in Q1 2024. Such a huge profit monopoly is obviously contrary to the spirit of encryption, so various decentralized stablecoin projects are constantly emerging. According to the collateral amount, decentralized stablecoins can be divided into over-collateralization represented by MakerDAO (DAI), equal collateralization represented by Ethena (USDe), and under-collateralization (currently there are no large-cap projects).
There have been many successful decentralized stablecoin projects, but the collateral of these projects is generally crypto assets, so a sophisticated mechanism needs to be designed to combat the volatility of the currency price. If RWA (real world assets) are introduced, this problem will be solved. RWA is growing and in the ascendant, with RWA on the blockchain growing by more than 800% in 2023. usual.money introduces U.S. Treasury bonds as collateral, while providing transparency and security based on Ethereum smart contracts, and returning profits to the community and contributors. This design can be said to be tether-on-chain, combining the 1:1 RWA characteristics of centralized stablecoin protocols with the security and transparency of the chain.
Image source: https://docs.usual.money/start-here/why-usual
background
On April 17, 2024, Usual Labs completed a US$7 million financing round, led by IOSG and Kraken Ventures, with participation from GSR, Mantle, Starkware, Flowdesk, Avid3, Bing Ventures, Breed, Hypersphere, Kima Ventures, Psalion, Public Works and X Ventures.
Founder Pierre Person is a former French politician, member of the National Assembly, and most recently vice-president of the presidentâs political party, spearheading the push for crypto asset legislation in the country.
On July 10, Usual announced the launch of its mainnet. As of August 6, the projectâs TVL was $146M.
According to Coinmarketcap data on August 6, nearly 95% of USD0 transactions are currently in Curve's USD0/USDC pool, with $11.33M in liquidity. At the same time, there are LPs of Aave's stablecoin GHO and USD0 on Maverick Protocol, with a current TVL of $100k.
Currently, USD0 has a treasury planned by MEV Capital on the lending project Morpho, USD0USD0++/USDC and USD0++/USDC liquidity pools, with a total of nearly $30M in collateral at 86% LLTV (Liquidation Loan-to-Value). Through this pool, you can get Usual Pills rewards (see the interactive section at the end of the article for details) and Morpho token rewards at the same time.
$USUAL TGE is expected in Q4 2024, with 90% of USUAL tokens allocated to the community.
Mechanism Analysis
Mortgage and Minting
$USD0 is the first RWA stablecoin that aggregates various US Treasury tokens and can be minted on Usual in two different ways:
Direct RWA Deposit: Users deposit eligible RWA into the protocol and receive an equivalent amount of USD0 at a 1:1 ratio.
Indirect USDC/USDT deposits: Users deposit USDC/USDT into the protocol and receive USD0 at a 1:1 ratio. This indirect method involves third-party collateral providers who provide the necessary RWA collateral. This allows users to obtain USD0 without having to directly handle RWA.
RWA has grown significantly, but still accounts for only a small portion of the underlying assets in the cryptocurrency market. The main challenge is liquidity issues, including the difficulties faced by institutions in liquidating RWA holdings in the secondary market, and the inability of retail investors to participate in the core DeFi ecosystem. Get RWA returns in the system. With USD0, Usual is able to seamlessly integrate RWA token liquidity from platforms like Hashnote.
income
$USD0++ is an added value Treasury note, USD0++ is a wrapped and locked version of USD0.
$USUAL is the governance and rewards token of the Usual protocol.
The income comes from staking: users lock their USD0 in USD0 Liquid Bond (USD0++) for a period of time. The income can be obtained in one of the following two ways:
USUAL Yield: Liquid Bond holders can receive their daily yield in the form of USUAL tokens (calculated every block).
Basic Interest Guarantee: USD0++ holders are guaranteed to receive a return at least equal to the return on their USD0 collateral (risk-free return). To achieve this, users must lock their USD0++ for a specified period of time (currently designed to be 6 months). At the end of this period, users can choose to receive the Basic Interest Guarantee in the form of USUAL tokens or the risk-free return on USD0.
It is important to note that regardless of whether USD0++ is obtained through primary issuance or the secondary market, holders are automatically entitled to receive USUAL tokens.
Interaction
Pills Event Overview
The pre-launch phase starts at 00:00 (UTC) on July 10 and lasts for 4 months.
Airdrop Amount: 7.5% of total $USUAL supply minted at the Token Generation Event (TGE)
Users can get $USUAL airdrop allocation through referral program and TVL contribution. Similar to Ethena's planting pills activity.
Linear distribution: the more you deposit, the more you get.
Detailed interactive guide
Open Usual Money dApp: https://app.usual.money#ZHWQSor enter through the official website and enter the early access code: ZHWQS
Deposit USDC, USDT, ETH to mint USD0 (Ethereum mainnet). Click the link to mint: https://app.usual.money/counter/deposit
How to earn pills:
Minting: Users can earn 5 pills each time they lock USD0 into USD0++.
Holding: Users holding USD0++ can get 3 pills per day.
USD0/USDC Pool: Users who provide liquidity in Curveâs USD0/USDC pool can earn 1 pill per day.
USD0/USD0++ Pool:
Users who contribute USD0 to the pool receive 3 pills per day.
For every USD0++ minted, you can also get 5 pills, which are distributed proportionally to the USD0 LP in the pool.
NOTE: Providing USD0++ to this pool will not yield any pills.
There is also a time multiplier that starts at 1 and increases by 2% every day. It resets to 1 if the user exits their position.
Add liquidity to get pills: Select the USD0/USD0++ option and enter the USD0 amount. Link: https://app.usual.money/desk/liquidity
Pills Event Phase 2
On August 4, Usual launched the second event, where you can get Pills by completing tasks on Galxe. Event link: https://app.galxe.com/quest/usual/GCsgvtvTNA
