$USUAL

Usual is a new stablecoin protocol that passed $1 billion in market capitalization yesterday less than four months post launch. Today it reached $1.15 billion, becoming the seventh largest stablecoin. Until this week, Usual’s stablecoin was entirely backed by Hashnote, a tokenized money market fund (MMF) from the founders of DRW. Yesterday Usual said it would start diversifying the reserves to include Ethena’s new USDtb stablecoin, which in turn is backed by BlackRock’s BUIDL money market fund. Today Usual announced a third element of its reserves, UsualM, an extension of the $M stablecoin.

The M^0 protocol underpins the semi-decentralized stablecoin $M. Rather than relying on a single issuer, there can be many issuers that invest the assets in Treasuries only. M^0 shares revenues from the reserves with issuers and earners, with Usual counting as an earner in this case. Usual gets a special version of $M, the UsualM, with additional functionality such as permissioned unwrapping, blacklisting and pausing capabilities.

$M deliberately doesn’t have this functionality at its core because of its decentralized roots. It doesn’t want to provide an external kill switch. But those that want to build on top of the M^0 protocol, such as Usual, can add these features.

They are also free to customize it in other respects, including branding, convertibility features and yield distribution.

“Extending $M into UsualM to support $USD0 marks a pivotal step in advancing our vision for stablecoins,” said Pierre Person, CEO of Usual. “M^0’s cutting-edge infrastructure enables us to create a stablecoin that prioritizes transparency, security, and adaptability while aligning with the needs of our community. With UsualM, we’re not just introducing another stablecoin—we’re redefining how digital dollars can generate meaningful value and impact.”