Author: Wenser, Planet Daily
Since WLFI officially announced the launch of the stablecoin USD1 on March 25, the circulation of USD1 has exceeded 2 billion tokens in less than three months, with a market capitalization of $2.18 billion. In comparison, USDT took about 5 years (early 2019) to reach this milestone, while USDC took about 2 years (September 2020). Although the maturity of the cryptocurrency industry varies, achieving this feat in such a short time highlights the strong development momentum of USD1. In light of this, Odaily Planet Daily will outline the development ideas of USD1 and the potential for large-scale adoption in this article for readers' reference.
The Bold Path of USD1: First Occupying Ethereum and BSC, Then Expanding to TRON
On March 25, amidst rampant market speculation, WLFI officially announced the upcoming launch of the "institutional-grade stablecoin" — USD1.
According to the official announcement, USD1 will be 100% backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, U.S. dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents. Initially, USD1 tokens will be minted on the Ethereum and BSC chains, with plans to expand to other protocols in the future. Each token is designed to maintain a value of $1, fully supported by a reserve portfolio that is regularly audited by a third-party accounting firm; the USD1 reserves will be custodied by BitGo, the world's largest independent qualified custodian.
At that time, as a strong competitor to USDT and USDC, and backed by the Trump family project WLFI, the USD1 stablecoin project sparked market speculation, with many believing it could replace the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC. In response, Binance founder CZ stated, "USDT and USDC do not need to be replaced; the more stablecoins, the better." The reason behind this is that BSC is one of the main ecosystems supporting USD1.
In the following days, as Congress was reviewing the "Stablecoin Innovation Act," five Democratic senators jointly wrote to the Federal Reserve and OCC, questioning the "unprecedented risks" posed by the USD1 stablecoin launched by the Trump family crypto project WLFI, directly targeting Trump, claiming that he weakened regulatory independence through a February executive order and holds a 60% stake in WLFI, constituting a significant conflict of interest.
Despite this, USD1 continued to progress smoothly and was confirmed in May by WLFI co-founder Zack Witkoff that USD1 would also be natively issued on the TRON chain. On June 14, the first USD1 was successfully minted on the TRON chain, announced by TRON founder Justin Sun, and later confirmed by Eric Trump, the son of Trump.
Looking back at the nearly two-month development path of USD1, this "new player in the stablecoin arena" can be seen as a model of complementary strategies.
The Complementary Strategy of USD1: Institutional Adoption as the Norm, Meme Liquidity as the Exception
As Sun Tzu's Art of War states: "In warfare, one must combine the regular with the irregular." This means that in battle, there are generally two types of strategies: one is to engage in direct confrontation using conventional tactics, and the other is to launch a surprise attack using unconventional methods.
For a stablecoin project like USD1, since it lacks the first-mover advantage of early stablecoin projects like USDT and USDC, and given that Trump, as the President of the United States, is neither able nor willing to promote its large-scale adoption through executive orders or coercive policies, it needs to combine both conventional and unconventional strategies, having a regular approach for advancement while also preparing for exceptional breakthroughs.
The Grand Strategy of USD1: Institutional Investment and Institutional-Level Adoption
For stablecoin projects, the most important goal is — "to have users." For an early-stage stablecoin project, the demand for institutional-level adoption is stronger and the liquidity scale is larger compared to the dispersed market of retail investors, which is why USD1 has focused on institutional adoption since its inception.
Specifically, WLFI has made two moves to promote institutional adoption of USD1:
First, in terms of investment. As Eric Trump, the son of Trump, previously stated, the USD1 stablecoin issued by WLFI has been officially selected as the stablecoin to complete the $2 billion investment by the UAE sovereign fund MGX in Binance. As the first major financing case in cryptocurrency history, MGX's investment in Binance is undoubtedly a significant milestone in the development of cryptocurrency, and as the official stablecoin for this financing, USD1 will also create a typical case for global stablecoin adoption, promoting the credibility and usability of crypto stablecoins in the global economic market while driving its own large-scale adoption. Additionally, at the end of May, WLFI announced that USD1 would be the only designated stablecoin for the well-known AI project Sahara Labs (SAHARA) on the Buidlpad platform. In the investment sector, USD1's climate has been established.
Second, in terms of crypto market makers. DWF Labs, one of the well-known crypto market makers, is also an important partner of USD1. It not only participated in the early interactions of USD1 but also received 1 million USD1 tokens for market making in early April. Furthermore, wallet users holding USD1 can participate in the beta testing and farming activities of the Falcon Stable protocol under DWF Labs. Moreover, besides DWF Labs, the well-known market maker Wintermute was the top institutional holder of USD1 on the chain at that time, and Wintermute's OTC platform also opened support for USD1.
Third, in terms of exchanges and crypto projects. USD1 has also received strong support from the BSC ecosystem. In addition to BSC being the native issuance network, the pillar project of the BSC ecosystem, Lista DAO, launched the USD1 Vault for its lending product Lista Lending in mid-April, marking the first application of this stablecoin on the BSC chain. Additionally, Binance announced in May that users would enjoy zero fees for withdrawing USD1 through the BNB Chain. Subsequently, as USD1 gradually developed, various projects including BounceBit, Kernel DAO, the BSC ecosystem AI data labeling project Tagger, and numerous crypto exchanges followed suit in supporting USD1.
Furthermore, the U.S. publicly listed company Amber International has included USD1 in its "100 million dollar crypto ecosystem reserve plan," and the presale of the influencer Hasbulla's BULLA token also received funding related to USD1.
It can be said that crypto exchanges and projects, crypto market makers, and crypto investment institutions and platforms together form the "institutional adoption landscape" of USD1.
The Surprising Strategy of USD1: Meme Liquidity and Large-Scale Airdrop Distribution
A stablecoin that only involves institutional participation is not a good stablecoin, as the majority of the crypto market still consists of retail investors.
To promote the use and popularity of USD1 among market users, WLFI has also chosen a dual approach:
First, by encouraging and supporting meme coin projects to build USD1 liquidity pools, thereby promoting broader adoption of USD1. A landmark event in this initiative was WLFI's first purchase of the Binance Alpha token BuidlON (B) token, which was driven by the fact that the B token launched a USD1 liquidity pool. For more details, see the article "WLFI-Backed BUILDon Market Cap Reaches $400 Million, What Other Targets Are Worth Attention?" Not only that, WLFI subsequently launched a USD1 trading competition (liquidity promotion activity) in collaboration with multiple projects in the BSC ecosystem, encouraging meme coin projects in the BSC ecosystem to create USD1 trading pools. In the latest round of the event, the meme token EGL1, centered around American culture, won first place in the activity with a trading volume of nearly $200 million in the past week.
USD1 Trading Competition Leaderboard
Second, WLFI planned to airdrop USD1 to WLFI token holders as early as April. After passing community proposal voting, this plan was officially implemented in early June, airdropping 47 USD1 tokens to WLFI subscribers' addresses (market speculation suggests this number may be related to Trump being the 47th President of the United States), and in a short period, a total of $4 million was airdropped. It must be said that perhaps every stablecoin project's development path cannot do without the "generous distribution of tokens" aspect.
In the latest news, WLFI has officially integrated with OKX Wallet, allowing users to seamlessly access the project and participate in cross-chain and other on-chain services of the stablecoin USD1 through OKX Wallet. Thus, WLFI and USD1 have successfully completed the final piece of their application puzzle — the infrastructure of the crypto wallet industry.
Conclusion: The Explosive Potential of USD1 is Worth Looking Forward To
According to Coinmarketcap data, USD1 currently has a 24-hour trading volume of about $600 million, with CEX trading volume accounting for about 20% and DEX trading volume accounting for about 80%, indicating that its "complementary strategies" have already begun to show results.
As the U.S. stablecoin regulatory bill "The Innovation Act" is about to be implemented, backed by the Trump family and WLFI, the application scenarios for USD1 are expected to be further expanded. At that time, it may become another major stablecoin project following the "crypto stablecoin leader" USDT and the "first stock of stablecoins" USDC.
Moreover, influenced by Trump's presidential identity, USD1 may play a significant role as a medium for trade currency or in resolving U.S. Treasury bonds worth trillions of dollars in the subsequent tariff trade wars.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
