The Rise of Yield Stablecoins: Exploring the New Generation of Cryptocurrency Financial Products

The cryptocurrency market has always been perceived as highly volatile and unstable. However, stablecoins, as a special niche, have developed into a mature sector with a market capitalization exceeding $200 billion. These tokens, which are usually pegged to the dollar, can not only serve as trading chips but also be applied in various scenarios such as payments.

Although the market share is currently dominated by centralized institutions issuing USDT and USDC, the demand for decentralized stablecoins has never waned. From DAI to UST, the development of decentralized stablecoins has continuously innovated in the types of collateral and anchoring mechanisms. Recently, USDe launched by Ethena has pioneered a new paradigm of interest-bearing stablecoins through the model of futures arbitrage and staking yields, and its market value has jumped to the third place globally.

Inspired by the successful case of Ethena, more and more yield stablecoin projects have emerged in the market. This article will focus on three emerging projects: Usual, Anzen, and Resolv, exploring their anchoring mechanisms and sources of yield.

Usual: Innovative stablecoin under a strong team background

Usual's USD0 is an interest-bearing stablecoin based on RWA (real-world assets), with returns derived from short-term government bonds. Users can stake USD0 to earn USD0++, while also receiving $USUAL tokens as additional rewards. The project team has a strong background and close ties with the French political and business circles, which provides robust support for the project's development in the RWA field.

The market capitalization of USD0 increased by 66% over the past week, reaching $1.4 billion, surpassing PayPal's PyUSD. The annualized yield of USD0++ is as high as 50%. Recently, Usual also reached a partnership with Ethena, further expanding its influence in the stablecoin market.

However, it is important to note that the economic model of the USUAL token has certain inflation risks. The project team stated that they will control the inflation rate through the growth of protocol revenue, but this balance requires long-term observation.

Anzen: An Attempt at Tokenization of Credit Assets

USDz issued by Anzen supports multiple blockchain networks, with its underlying assets consisting of a portfolio of private credit assets. The sUSDz obtained by staking USDz can enjoy RWA returns, with the current annualized yield being around 10%.

Anzen has partnered with the U.S. licensed brokerage firm Percent, focusing its portfolio mainly on the U.S. market and adopting a diversified investment strategy to reduce risk. The project has also received support from several well-known financial institutions, including BlackRock and JP Morgan.

In terms of financing, Anzen has completed a $4 million seed round, with investors including several well-known encryption investment institutions. The project adopts a ve token model, allowing ANZ token holders to participate in protocol revenue distribution through locked staking.

Resolv: Stablecoin for Delta Neutral Strategies

Resolv offers two main products: USR and RLP. USR is an over-collateralized stablecoin backed by ETH, while RLP is a non-stablecoin asset used to support the over-collateralization of USR.

Resolv adopts a Delta-neutral strategy to manage collateral, staking most of the ETH with Lido while shorting in the futures market to hedge risks. This strategy aims to simultaneously obtain staking yield and funding rate income.

The profit distribution adopts a ratio of 70/30, where 70% is allocated as a basic reward to stUSR and RLP holders, and 30% is allocated as a risk premium to RLP holders. This design allows RLP holders to obtain higher returns, but also entails greater risks.

Currently, the annualized yield of stUSR is 12.53%, RLP is 21.7%, the total locked value (TVL) has reached 183 million USD, and the collateralization rate is 126%.

With the development of these emerging interest-bearing stablecoin projects, the crypto financial market is ushering in a new wave of innovation. These projects provide users with more diversified investment options by combining traditional finance and decentralized technology. However, investors still need to be cautious when participating in these emerging projects and fully understand their operational mechanisms and potential risks.