The Verified USD Foundation has announced the launch of Verified USD (USDV), a community-driven stablecoin fully backed by the unrivaled on-chain transparency and stability of a basket of tokenized US Treasury Bills (T-bills). A native omnichain stablecoin compatible with the ERC-20 standard, each USDV is pegged to the equivalent value of 1 US dollar.
USDV’s underlying reserve of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) is a compelling alternative to legacy stablecoins. Apart from a stable value derived from the underlying on-chain T-bills, USDV offers real-time verification through proof-of-reserve, bridging the information gap between stablecoin issuer, verified minters and holders.
The Verified USD Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a sustainable and progressive stablecoin ecosystem that enables equitable value-sharing among the community of contributors who are critical for stablecoin use cases and adoption. This is primarily achieved via ColorTrace, a novel value attribution algorithm developed by LayerZero that ensures the fair and transparent distribution of rewards among verified minters without disputes.
“USDV represents a major evolution in stablecoin technology,” remarked Matthew Commons, President of the Verified USD Foundation. “Unique among stablecoins, USDV enables a collaborative community approach where those who create stablecoin use cases can be an integral part of the stablecoin value creation. The Foundation is excited to work with contributors in unlocking new use cases with real-world impact, backed by unmatched transparency and stability.”
Powered by Transparency of on-chain assets
The Verified USD Foundation has chosen Matrixport’s Short-term Treasury Bill Token (STBT), as its initial underlying reserve asset. All USDV transactions can be tracked on-chain and available for review on Etherscan. Its open sourced smart contracts have undergone rigorous security audits by third parties such as OtterSec, Zellic.io and Paladin.
John Ge, CEO of Matrixport said: “Bringing real world assets on-chain will be a major theme for the digital assets industry and we are thrilled that our tokenized treasury offering has been selected as the inaugural reserve asset by the Verified USD Foundation. Under Matrixdock, our branded RWA platform, we have spared no effort to continually enhance STBT’s transparency and responsiveness to meet exacting standards of reliability and security expected by our institutional clients.”
An ERC-1400 standard token, 1 STBT is pegged to 1 USD of net-asset value (NAV), fully backed by ‘risk free’ short-term T-bills with maturities within 6 months and reverse repurchase agreements (Repo) secured by T-bills. Designed for accredited investors, STBT empowers the USDV community with real-time verification via on-chain Proof-of-Reserves. Launched in February 2023, STBT is a leading tokenized T-bill on the Ethereum chain.
ColorTrace, the Bedrock for a Fair Distributed Rewards System
USDV is powered by ColorTrace, a novel value attribution algorithm invented by LayerZero Labs, allowing community participants to transparently and equitably receive rewards for their contributions to the stablecoin ecosystem. This reward distribution system enables verified minters to mark their tokens in circulation and transparently access rewards derived from on-chain reserves without dispute.
“The ColorTrace algorithm solves the challenge of attribution for fungible tokens,” stated Ryan Zarick, CTO and Co-Founder of LayerZero. “The applications of the ColorTrace algorithm to existing RWA-backed assets – like stablecoins – are exciting and have the potential to create a more fair and equitable distribution across all contributors to an ecosystem’s success.”
USDV is also integrated with LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Tokens (OFT) Standard, a widely adopted standard designed for seamless operation across multiple blockchain networks. The stablecoin will initially launch on the Ethereum, BNB Smartchain, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Optimism blockchains, with the technological capability to interoperate across all chains supported by LayerZero (currently 40+).
Community-driven Ecosystem
23 Industry-leading CeFi, DeFi and GameFi contributors are supporting USDV at launch, including abracadabra.money, Animoca Brands, BasedApp, BIT Exchange, Bitget Exchange, Cactus Custody, Coin98 Finance, Curve Finance, Beam by Eco, Frax Finance, LayerZero, Matrixport, Maverick Protocol, Reunit Wallet, Stargate Finance, SushiSwap, Term Finance, Trader Joe, Velodrome Finance, Wintermute, Wombat Exchange, WOO Network and zk.Link.
Gracy Chen, Managing Director of Bitget said: “We are excited to announce the listing of the USDV project on our exchange. This partnership aligns with our ongoing commitment to support a variety of potential projects within the industry, fostering a diverse and vibrant financial ecosystem. The innovative approaches employed by the USDV project are indicative of the forward-thinking ventures we continually seek to associate with. Through this collaboration, we are taking a step further towards a more inclusive and dynamic digital asset landscape.”
Michael Egorov, Founder of Curve Finance said: Having founded Curve Finance, I am excited to see how the incentive design of USDV works. A diversity of redeemable stablecoins is critical for the stability of DeFi and seeing such a credible new offering is impressive. USDV’s transparency is quite unique, and cross-chain enablement via omnichain standard is perfect for custodial assets. I want to extend a warm welcome to USDV as it enters the world of DeFi.
Angus Buttar, Foundation Lead at the Stargate Foundation said: “With USDV launching as a native omnichain token, Stargate is well placed to help ensure users can access it wherever they need to. We’re also excited to see the opportunities that USDV provides to users and protocols across DeFi.”
With the backing of the inaugural community of USDV contributors, the Verified USD Foundation aims to further expand ecosystem partnerships in the future, including accessibility to more chains and enhancing utility on multiple platforms across different blockchain ecosystems.