Why the Next Wave of Decentralized Stablecoin Projects Will Redefine Finance

HyperNest Podcast is a monthly series where we meet Web3 founders, industry leaders, and blockchain experts to discuss various topics in the web3 space.

As DeFi infrastructure matures, founders and protocol builders are seeking tools that are not just composable, but also aligned with user-centric values. A decentralized stablecoin that redistributes real yield, engages its community in governance, and scales through efficient collateral models stands to reshape liquidity, lending, and asset management across the entire Web3 stack. That’s what Usual Money is aiming to build.

Our insights today come from Adli Takkal Bataille, DEO and Co-founder of Usual. Having started his crypto journey in 2013, Adli’s contributions span writing books, advising protocols, and building community-centric ventures. As the co-founder of Usual Money, Adli is passionately redefining what a decentralized stablecoin can accomplish.

Usual merges cypherpunk principles with real-world utility, designing a product that challenges centralized incumbents and unlocks fair financial models for users. With Adli at the helm, Usual’s vision goes beyond a stablecoin—it aims to become a decentralized BlackRock for the crypto economy

Decentralized Stablecoin Design: Moving Beyond CDPs

Traditional decentralized stablecoin models, like those used by MakerDAO (DAI), rely on crypto-collateralized debt positions (CDPs). While effective in early stages, CDP models are complex, capital-inefficient, and often dependent on centralized collateral to scale. As Adli explains, Usual takes a different approach—replicating the reserve-based model of USDT and USDC but in a decentralized, transparent, and yield-sharing format.

By backing its decentralized stablecoin (USD0) with tokenized money market funds or real-world productive assets (like Lido’s staked ETH in E0), Usual creates stable, cash-flowing primitives that are sustainable and composable for DeFi builders.

Why Transparent Collateral Matters

Usual’s design ensures users can verify the collateral reserves in real time. While large stablecoins offer vague statements about their reserves, Usual ties its collateral to on-chain tokenized funds, offering clear mandates and visibility. This level of transparency dramatically reduces counterparty risk—an appealing differentiator for protocols seeking to minimize exposure to opaque centralized infrastructure.

Decentralized Stablecoin Governance: Protocol Ownership by the Community

Usual isn’t just decentralizing assets—it’s decentralizing ownership. Over 90% of its governance token (USUAL) is being distributed to users, not institutional investors. This approach diverges sharply from traditional token distributions where founders and VCs capture outsized shares.

Adli outlines how USUAL tokens can be staked in USUALx, granting holders revenue-share rights, governance voting, and preferential protocol benefits (such as reduced fees on redemptions and vault strategies). This ecosystem design ties user engagement directly to protocol growth, rewarding sustained participation over mercenary TVL. 

Yield Redistribution: Real Revenue for Users

One of Usual’s most compelling features is its real yield approach. Unlike centralized stablecoin providers that retain 100% of the interest income from collateralized reserves, Usual redistributes the majority of this yield back to users holding USD0 and its staked versions (USD0++ and E0++).

This model transforms users from passive liquidity providers into active yield recipients. It’s a radical departure from the “crypto banks” model where profits benefit only corporate shareholders. At the time of writing, Adli shared that more than $6 million in revenue has already been redistributed to users—marking tangible value accrual for early adopters. 

Decentralized Stablecoin Scaling: The Collateral Strategy

Usual is building more than one decentralized stablecoin. With new products like E0 (Ethereum-backed) and upcoming releases like BTC0, the team is expanding into synthetic productive assets that use real collateral. These allow users to gain passive exposure to assets such as Ether and Bitcoin while still receiving protocol equity in the form of USUAL tokens.

This strategy increases protocol resilience by diversifying yield sources. If U.S. Treasury yields drop, users can rely on alternative crypto-native yields (e.g., staking, basis trading strategies through vaults). A multi-asset stablecoin base not only supports ecosystem sustainability but also improves DeFi composability.

Innovative Peg and Redemption Mechanics

Maintaining a strong peg is critical for any stablecoin. Usual uses a suite of mechanisms—unrestricted mint and redemption, arbitrage incentives, and front-end routing logic that redirects users to secondary markets if USD0 trades at a discount. These controls aim to reduce volatility without introducing rigid over-collateralization models.

Even more, the protocol is experimenting with locking mechanisms that mirror long-duration treasury bonds. For example, USD0++ is a four-year locked version of USD0, offering higher upside for long-term holders while stabilizing protocol liquidity.

Decentralized Stablecoin UX: The Next Frontier

According to Adli, the stablecoin wars will be won on user experience. Today’s centralized winners—Tether and Circle—continue to dominate due to their integrations across exchanges and wallets, not necessarily because of product superiority.

This presents a crucial insight for DeFi builders: if we want decentralized stablecoins to become the default medium of exchange, they must be seamless to use across trading venues, wallets, and DeFi protocols. Usual is actively working on improving composability and onboarding more integration partners while remaining permissionless in its core functions.

“I believe we’re at an exciting moment where real-world usage is starting to emerge, ready to scale dramatically. It’s an exceptional time to be involved in crypto to build better and fairer services. We must remember the core reason crypto exists: creating decentralized solutions that redistribute power and value, fostering resilience and neutrality.” Adli said

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