Latest news with #NUSD
Axios
29-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
The stablecoin biz is developing fast
Stablecoin legislation is already having a big impact and neither chamber has even had a floor vote on it yet. The big picture: Stablecoin projects are coming fast and furious, fueled by expectations of a liquidity wave once the world's biggest economy gives its official nod. Standard Chartered experts project stablecoins to become a multitrillion-dollar category by 2028 if legislation passes that sanctions the sector. Context: That's comparable to the entire industry's market cap today. New entrants will find that stablecoins are a good business as long as interest rates aren't zero. Backed by reserves, usually U.S. Treasuries, they're a great business if rates are high. But that's a lot of sensitivity to forces outside your control, as Coin Metrics points out in its review of Circle's S-1. It also helps if your token is really popular, and it turns out that competing for market share is expensive. New trends are emerging. Some might not be as profitable, and others may not even be permitted out of the gate. Yield-bearing stablecoins could help attract market share. But they could also chip into an issuer's profits, even when rates are strong. Circle has gotten ahead of the trend by acquiring a coin designed for yield, USYC. Other products are coming at a steady clip. We've mentioned the $5 billion synthetic dollar, USDE, before, but another such delta-neutral stablecoin with yield built in got seed funding this week, NUSD. (Stablecoin legislation looks likely to forbid those kinds of tokens here — for now.) Zoom out: There's also more to the stablecoin industry than just issuing the tokens. Startups are forming to build out the use case beyond market liquidity, including companies that use stablecoins for remittances, payroll, cross-border transactions and treasury management. FalconX, one of the custody firms from the prior item, projects perhaps 50 new entrants to the stablecoin market this year (and the company is in a good position to do better than guess).
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Neutrl Raises $5M to Tokenize a Popular Hedge Fund Altcoin Trade
Novel decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Neutrl aims to bring a hedge fund trade — once limited to sophisticated investors — to the masses in the form of a crypto token. The protocol is launching its NUSD "synthetic dollar" token, designed to generate returns by arbitraging discounted altcoin deals in over-the-counter (OTC) markets, the team told CoinDesk in an exclusive interview. Neutrl also raised $5 million in seed funding led by digital asset private marketplace STIX and venture firm Accomplice. They were joined by Amber Group, SCB Limited, Figment Capital and Nascent alongside a range of crypto angel investors including Ethena founder Guy Young and derivatives trader Joshua Lim of Arbelos Markets, recently acquired by FalconX. Neutrl is the latest entrant to the rapidly growing roster of protocols that offer hedge fund-like investment strategies wrapped into a token with a stable price, often called "synthetic dollar." $6 billion DeFi protocol Ethena spearheaded the trend, offering yield to token holders via holding spot cryptos and shorting perpetual futures, farming the funding rate. Read more: Resolv Labs Raises $10M as Crypto Investor Appetite for Yield-Bearing Stablecoins Soars Neutrl's structure is built around buying locked altcoins at discounts in private markets, then hedging exposure with perpetual futures. For example, a trader might acquire Solana's SOL or Avalanche's AVAX at a 20% discount from a foundation and simultaneously open a short position for the token. The return comes from the price gap, not market movement. This is a popular hedge fund investment strategy producing high double-digit yields to sophisticated investors who don't want to take directional bets on crypto prices, Neutrl co-founder Behrin Naidoo explained in an interview. But, instead of managing these trades manually, users can hold a single token—NUSD—that encapsulates the strategy, opening access to a broader set of investors, he said. With a flood of altcoin unlocks over the next few years, Neutrl estimates that there's a $10 billion market for locked up tokens. This offers an attractive yield opportunity for investors, especially now when crypto yields in decentralized finance compressed to multi-year lows, Naidoo said. The protocol is targeting to grow to $2 billion in assets in the two years, he added. Sign in to access your portfolio
