Organization Name – Usual Money

Category – Banking & DeFi

About

powered by irmaAI

Usual makes a claim about stablecoins that most stablecoin protocols obscure: the yield belongs to the users, not the issuer. Founded in San Francisco in 2024, Usual converts USDC into USD0—a stablecoin fully backed by tokenized U.S. Treasury bills—and distributes the Treasury yield back to holders through the USUAL governance token rather than retaining it as protocol revenue.

This is a direct challenge to the standard stablecoin business model. Most stablecoins work by collecting your dollar, investing it in T-bills earning 4–5%, and keeping the spread. Usual’s claim is that this… arrangement is extractive and that users should receive what the collateral earns. The mechanism for this distribution is USD0++: a locked, four-year liquid staking token that accumulates yield over time.

The design is clean enough to write a short sentence about. Whether it survives at scale depends on the quality of the RWA backing, the redemption mechanics under stress, and whether the USUAL token retains sufficient value to make the distribution meaningful. On the transparency side: VB Transparency Score of 8.55 at the 50th percentile; RMA Unverified across all seven pillars despite launching in the U.S. with institutional-facing claims; MES of 13.06.

Early-stage classification is consistent with the 2024 launch. The case for Usual is that a T-bill-backed stablecoin with user-directed yield distribution is structurally better than the incumbent model. The open question is execution: whether the RWA backing is maintained with discipline, whether redemptions clear smoothly, and whether the locking mechanism in USD0++ turns out to benefit or disadvantage holders when they need liquidity. Read More