Binance and Kraken, the venture wings for the cryptocurrency exchange, led a $10 million Series A funding round for fast-growing stablecoin startup Usual, according to a statement on Monday.
Other backers include Ethena, a synthetic dollar platform. Real asset specialist Ondo Echo is a decentralized crowdfunding platform founded by cryptocurrency expert Jordan Fish (popularly known as Cobie) and several other high-profile investors.
M^0 On-Chain Stablecoin Infrastructure Company signed a deal Last week we joined Usual as a sponsor to help expand our support assets.
Launched “stealth” in early 2024, Usual offers a fully compatible stablecoin called USD0 that is backed 1:1 by real assets, primarily US Treasury bonds. Its founder, Pierre Person, is a former vice president of the president’s party and a former member of the French National Assembly, who led the French cryptocurrency bill.
According to CoinGecko, USD0 surpassed $1 billion in market capitalization last week and is set to rise to $1.5 billion in the coming days. data. It is the 7th largest stablecoin by market capitalization and the 6th most traded by volume.
Governed by the USUAL token, the protocol is designed to reward holders with actual returns generated by these reserve holdings, unlike the two largest stablecoins, USDT and USDC, which pass profits directly to issuers Tether and Circle, respectively. USD0 expects an annual return of 80%.
“The existing stablecoin model lacks transparency and fair distribution of value, privatizing profits and socializing losses, and goes against the spirit on which web3 was founded,” Usual CEO Person said in a statement.
The USD0++ protocol allows users to earn rewards in USUAL by staking their USD0 holdings for up to 4 years. Usual sometimes compares USD0++ to a short-term T-Bill in that it provides rights to future profits from the protocol.
USUAL is up about 11% in the last 24 hours.
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