In France, the development of infrastructure in the crypto world continues at full speed: yesterday, the financial protocol Usual announced the launch of USD0, a stablecoin anchored to the value of the US dollar and collateralized by real-world assets.
Holders of USD0 will be rewarded with yield generated from the returns of the covering RWAs.
The French company has clarified that it will also create another crypto, namely USUAL, a governance token that its holders can use to vote on future development proposals for the project.
Let’s see below all the details of the news.
Usual announces the launch of the USD0 stablecoin in France: the currency will be backed by RWA
Usual, financial protocol web3 of new generation developed in France by former politicians and entrepreneurs of the country, officially announced yesterday the launch of the stablecoin USD0: it is a cryptographic currency with a value almost stable, anchored to that of the US dollar, backed by real-world assets (RWA), such as gold and government bonds.
Stablecoin holders will be encouraged to hold the cryptocurrency in their portfolio, as they will be periodically rewarded with returns generated by the assets held as collateral.
This incentive model is partly inspired by the one recently launched by Ethena Labs, which offers returns to the stakers of the synthetic stablecoin USDe, originated from block validation activities on Ethereum and selling ETH short on futures to earn funding fees.
However, unlike other competitors, Usual’s case represents one of the first instances in history where a stablecoin offers a yield operating outside of DeFi, in a financial context disconnected from the logic of cryptocurrencies.
Usual’s mission integrates perfectly with this mechanism, as the French company is oriented towards bridging the gap between TradFi and decentralized finance operating on blockchain promoting inclusion and financial growth.
Outside of the mission, on the technical front, little or nothing is known about Usual, since the project has yet to be inaugurated in the cryptographic space, with the launch planned in France in the coming months as reported by its COO Hugo Sallé de Chou on X.
Here’s a 1st teaser on the new project I’ve worked on for the last 1,5 year. It’s called @usualmoney and it’s a revolution. We’ll unveil the project in the coming weeks and months! Stay put! #Stablecoin #Innovation cc @Pierr_Person @AdliTB https://t.co/MJesvxwazo
— Hugo Sallé de Chou (@hugosdc) February 28, 2024
For now what is known is that together the stablecoin will be accompanied by a governance token that takes the same name as the project, namely USUAL, which serves as a voting token for the improvement proposals that will be published by the community.
Regarding the news, the project’s CEO Pierre Person, former politician and member of the French National Assembly who led the country’s cryptocurrency legislation, expressed his enthusiasm about the possibility of expanding web3 into the traditional world.
These are his words in the press release published yesterday:
“Existing stablecoin models lack transparency and fair distribution of value, privatize their gains and socialize their losses, and go against the ethics on which web3 was built. Usual is proud to fill this gap by providing a stablecoin based on real assets and without permission, sharing our profits directly with the community and allowing our token holders to guide us towards the future they deem appropriate.”
The mainstream expansion of the stablecoin landscape in web3
While the USD0 coin makes its debut in France, the stablecoin sector continues to grow rapidly worldwide with more and more private companies, banks, and institutions issuing their own crypto with a constant value pegged to a specific fiat currency fiat.
Currently, the overall stablecoin market is worth about 146.5 billion dollars, mainly concentrated on coins pegged to USD on the Ethereum blockchain.
,in particular, they currently represent 99.3% of the total market capitalization of the stablecoin niche, leaving a meager 0.7% of space for all the other various pegs.
The choice of Usual to launch a crypto like USD0 in France, which mirrors the value of the US currency, is precisely dictated by the dominance of the dollar in this sector compared to all other competing currencies.
The euro turns out to be the second favorite fiat currency for stablecoin issuers, who in recent years have created a cryptographic mass of 588 million units, accounting for 92% compared to all other fiat currencies (AUD, GBP, CAD, HKD, CNY) present in the stablecoin sector.
Despite the centralization towards the US market, we can still emphasize the willingness of several issuers to diversify the nature and scope of use of all these currencies.
Although the trio USDT, USDC, and DAI effectively control a good portion of all USD pegged stablecoins (about 93%), occasionally a new stablecoin is born to meet the variety of demand present in the crypto world.
Recently, even PayPal has launched its own stablecoin, PYUSD, backed by highly liquid assets. The payment company’s experiment has quickly reached a market capitalization of over 300 million dollars, demonstrating that this industry is not yet saturated and there are many opportunities on the horizon.
Even in Europe, giant steps are being taken on the stablecoin front, with several countries ready to launch pilot programs: an example is Spain which will soon launch EURM; a crypto collateralized 1:1 with the euro and part of an experimentation for the financial inclusion of the country.
In April of last year, SG Forge, the crypto division of the French bank Société Générale, announced the creation of the EURCV stablecoin on the Ethereum network, with the aim of taking a step into the world of digital assets.
That being said, the USD0 project by Usual in France represents just the beginning of a movement that is expanding worldwide, ready to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by web3.