The Rise of Stablecoins and the YBS (Yield-Bearing Stablecoin) Market

This article explores the history of stablecoins, from Bitcoin to Tether to MakerDAO's DAI

Stablecoins are becoming a market consensus.

Stripe's acquisition of Bridge is just the beginning. Huma uses stablecoins to replace the intermediary status of banks, and Circle has become the new upstart in the cryptocurrency circle after Coinbase with USDC. All of the above are poor imitations of USDT.

Ethena is a latecomer but an early winner, MakerDAO changed its name to Sky and switched to interest-bearing stablecoins, Pendle, Aave, etc. are all rapidly transforming from USDC to PT/YT to USDe. The above is a summary of the recent story of on-chain stablecoins.

At least for now, YBS (Yield-Bearing Stablecoin) still belongs to the concept of stablecoin. It is difficult for everyone to understand the fundamental difference between USDe and USDT. In my opinion, YBS projects such as USDe attract users by generating interest, distribute part of the asset income to users, and continue to earn asset income after completing the deposit absorption.

Previously, USDT issuance was a process of creating new assets. It should be noted that the reserves of USDT are the responsibility of regulators or project owners and have nothing to do with users. Users can only passively accept that USDT represents $1 and expect others to recognize its value.

YBS follows the logic of deposit absorption and lending of on-chain banks and deconstructs the power of asset issuance. Circle's creation of USDC requires government-business cooperation and exchange support, but YBS has already shown a blowout trend.

To reiterate, the history of the crypto industry is the history of innovation in asset issuance models, but this time it is a little milder in the name of stability, not as intense as the PVP on the ERC-20, NFT (ERC-721) and Meme Coin chains.

For example, f(x) Protocol has at least 5 stablecoins. V1 and V2 have rUSD and fxUSD respectively. In addition, there are $btcUSD, $cvxUSD, and even fETH is also called a stablecoin because it maintains a price anchor by capturing part of ETH's volatility, and the remaining volatility is absorbed by xToken.

Stability comes from volatility, and volatility creates stablecoins.

From the Old World to the New World

Whether it is interest-bearing stablecoins or StableFi, they are both new ways of expressing stablecoins. It is worthwhile to sort out the origins of stablecoins.

Stablecoins originated from Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash payment system, but Bitcoin is not stable. This is not a problem with Bitcoin’s design. Bitcoin is essentially an unanchored currency system, and its fair price still fluctuates around its value and cannot be stabilized in the short term.

The earliest attempt of USDT was in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and then it moved to the exchange pricing field. The golden combination of Bitfinix and Tether allowed the stablecoin to find its earliest home, just like Coinbase and Circle today.

Fiat stablecoin was born. Its mechanism is not complicated. You only need to trust Tether, and everyone recognizes the market transaction stability of USDT. The first-mover advantage allows Tether to create a higher profit margin than BlackRock.

Following closely behind is DAI issued by MakerDAO. The over-collateralization mechanism (CDP) has long been the only option for issuing on-chain stablecoins. The 1.5 times collateral assets suppress capital efficiency, but give market players higher credibility.

The subsequent history of cryptocurrency, from an on-chain perspective, is a story of how to reduce the pledge rate. Financial alchemy works in both directions. Hyperliquid can amplify asset trading leverage, but there is no good way to leverage asset creation.

Regarding asset creation, UST is a sad chapter. The classic algorithmic stablecoin has since failed. Frax can be regarded as semi-algorithmic at best, or it is more appropriate to call it a hybrid mechanism (Hybrid). It is already a shell of USDC.

From a mechanism perspective, interest-bearing stablecoins require interest-bearing mechanisms and stablecoin mechanisms. Based on the other three, the CDP mechanism of DeFi giants is also acceptable, and Ethena's Delta neutral mechanism is also fine, as long as stability can be guaranteed. Of course, USDD is promised by Sun Ge to remain stable as long as everyone agrees.

The real difference lies in the interest-bearing and profit-sharing mechanism, which depends on the source of the interest-bearing assets. There are two simplest ways: using pledged assets such as stETH on the chain and using self-yielding assets such as US Treasury bonds off the chain, and both can be mixed.

Ethena's USDe is rather special. While using stETH to generate interest, it uses CEX hedging to keep the currency price stable. It also needs to comply with off-chain entities and uses USDC