Interview with Charles, Founder of StakeStone: Why was he chosen by WLFI and how did he eat the first crab in USD1?

By Web3 farmer Frank

What is the core competitiveness of the stablecoin business?

"Credit".

StakeStone founder Charles' reply is straightforward and naked, and in the stablecoin war, the typical embodiment of "credit" is the credit endorsement of the Trump family like USD1. Less than 100 days after its birth, USD1 achieved phenomenal "0 to 1" growth and full coverage of top exchanges:

Since March, the issuance has soared to $2.1 billion, surpassing FDUSD and PYUSD to become the fifth largest stablecoin in the world (CoinMarketCap data), and has fully landed on leading CEXs such as HTX, Bitget, and Binance, while PYUSD, which has been backed by PayPal for two years, is still struggling to penetrate.

In Charles' view, "the essence of currency issuance is credit", and the stronger the credit, the faster it will be applied, so he is sure that USD1 will be the stablecoin with the most growth potential in 2025.

So, why did StakeStone take this first ticket?

"USD1's development logic is very different from USDT/USDC", and USD1's unique credit endorsement makes its real-world promotion more capable of cross-domain adoption and resource integration than traditional stablecoins.

Therefore, USD1's maximum growth potential is not in the Web3 circle, just as a larger proportion of USDT and USDC applications today are also in the traditional financial field, including but not limited to: large financial institutions, cross-border trading companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed (such as freelancers, content creators), and underdeveloped areas with financial services. These areas will greatly benefit from the popularity of digital stablecoins (Digital Money).

The widespread adoption of USD1 on-chain must be achieved through a hub of full-chain liquidity. Therefore, according to Charles, as early as the second half of 2024, StakeStone began negotiating cooperation with World Liberty Finance (WLFI), the issuer behind USD1, on full-chain liquidity.

The key factor that really prompted WLFI to choose StakeStone is StakeStone's multi-chain operation capabilities reflected in a series of products such as Berachain, especially the function of "full-chain liquidity distribution" that has always been built - so in the USD1 ecosystem, StakeStone actually plays a dual role: the official minting channel and the full-chain liquidity hub. This provides USD1 with a one-stop portal from minting to full-chain and full-scenario coverage.

This interview also hopes to understand the logic of the cooperation between WLFI/USD1 and StakeStone through Charles's perspective, and what fundamental changes are taking place in the stablecoin landscape in his eyes, so as to uncover the key puzzle of this new round of stablecoin narrative.

Negotiations at the end of last year, why did WLFI choose StakeStone?

When asked why StakeStone became USD1's first DeFi minter, Charles first broke down USD1's issuance mechanism:

After completing compliance processes such as KYC verification, institutional users need to deposit USD into a designated custodian bank account, and after WLFI verifies the arrival of funds, institutions can mint USD1 in units of $100 - but the USD1 balance in this process is still stuck in the account system and has not yet been put on the chain, so it must enter the public chain world through "withdrawal", while currently USD1 officially only supports two chains: Ethereum and BNB Chain (and the latter accounts for more than 98% of the total issuance).

In other words, in the current on-chain environment, USD1 does not achieve native multi-chain deployment, and there are currently only two ways to realize the circulation and use of USD1 on other chains. First, it relies on officially launched cross-chain bridges, but this is far from enough, it can only solve the "cross-chain existence" of assets, but it cannot build complete application scenarios; The second is to build an independent full-chain distribution system through partners.

It is in this critical link that StakeStone uses its multi-chain distribution and scenario operation capabilities to distribute USD1 to more than 20 chains, realizing native implementation and application in multi-chain DeFi scenarios.

According to Charles, StakeStone and the WLFI team have been in contact with the WLFI team since the end of 2024, and the other party finally decided to cooperate, which is inseparable from the asset distribution system that StakeStone has established in the multi-chain ecosystem, and also values its rich experience in the integration of blue-chip asset yields, which can quickly introduce USD1 into real DeFi application scenarios. This also means that from the beginning of the birth of USD1, StakeStone is not just a "minter", but more like a strategic partner towards the multi-chain ecosystem - not only to realize the full-chain distribution of USD1 as a core hub, but also to build interest-bearing products, provide income certificates, and create the on-chain use soil for USD1 on various DeFi chains, and realize the integration of "fiat currency deposit → minting→ multi-chain distribution → on-chain and off-chain scenario docking" for USD1 in the future Build a true one-stop liquidity closed-loop service.

Here are the relevant interview questions:

Frank: We see that StakeStone is the "official full-chain liquidity support partner of USD1 stablecoin", can you introduce the specific content of the cooperation with WLFI, and what core support and services will StakeStone provide for USD1?

Charles: Currently, we are not only the minting service provider of USD1, but also deeply involved in its governance ecosystem, undertaking the construction of full-chain liquidity, and future cooperation plans include:

• Payment products: Launched a USD1-based collection tool to support global enterprises to receive USD1 directly through Visa/Mastercard and access traditional banking systems as stablecoins become legal.
• Full-chain DeFi yield products: Launched USD1 LiquidityPad Vault products, a one-stop all-chain yield product for USD1, on the chain.
• CeDeFi product: Build a USD1 CeDeFi product that combines traditional financial institutions' USD savings products and quantitative trading income;
• Compliance channel construction: apply for multi-country payment licenses, open up a one-stop exchange path for legal currency → USD1, and gradually replace OTC channels;
   

Frank: Currently, USD1 has high requirements for Mint service provider qualifications, why did WLFI choose StakeStone as the first DeFi protocol minting service provider, and what led to this cooperation?

Charles: Our cooperation with the USD1 team began in its private placement stage at the end of last year (Q4 2024), and we were involved in its technical path planning in the early stages.

Frank: StakeStone has never launched a business or product directly related to stablecoins before, does this in-depth cooperation with USD1 mark StakeStone's official entry into the field of compliant stablecoins?

Charles: We did not have stablecoin products before, this cooperation is our first step into the stablecoin infrastructure, and we will definitely build a complete set of products around USD1 in the future, including USD1's LiquidityPad full-chain liquidity distribution vault, USD1's minting and stable interest-bearing products, etc.

These are actually things that StakeStone is already good at, but before we mainly served blue-chip assets or public chain assets, now we will make a complete set of "stablecoin-as-a-service" solutions for USD1.

Frank: As the "first DeFi protocol minter of USD1", will ordinary users be able to directly mint or exchange USD1 cross-chain through StakeStone in the future?

Charles: We definitely hope to encapsulate this mechanism, for example, users bind their bank cards through the StakeStone front-end, deposit fiat currency directly, and then mint USD1 through our institutional account in the system background, and then cross to the target chain selected by the user through the bridge, so as to achieve a one-stop experience for the entire process from deposit, minting to distribution.

At present, we are already laying out compliance licenses in this regard, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong, which are relatively clear areas with clear compliance licenses to open up payment channels, and users may deposit and exchange USD1 through credit cards, SWIFT, wire transfers, etc. in the future.

"USD1's larger application scenarios are not in the currency circle", full-chain liquidity × a new growth paradigm for global liquidity

"USD1's larger application scenarios are not in the currency circle."

StakeStone is also preparing a USD1-based payment product to provide a compliant and efficient global aggregation acquiring product for SMEs, digital nomads, self-employed individuals, and more.

He believes that the market this direction is pointing to is the second half of larger stablecoins that cannot be ignored. StakeStone not only aims to provide full-stack support for USD1 as a "stablecoin-as-a-service", but also seeks to promote its evolution into an "on-chain USD API" for real settlement and global circulation.

Here are the relevant interview questions:

Frank: Distributing products with full-chain stablecoins may seem a bit abstract, can you give an example of how ordinary users can use USD1 on the entire chain through StakeStone, participate in different ecosystems, and earn income?

Charles: It can be simply understood as a "three-step", where users first deposit USD1 into StakeStone's liquidity vault, StakeStone issues interest-bearing stablecoin certificates, and then participate in the target chain blue-chip DeFi scenarios (such as Morpho, Pendle, etc.) through the interest-bearing certificates they hold to earn income.

At the same time, StakeStone will distribute the underlying USD1 into the full-chain ecosystem to participate in the deployment of cross-chain multi-interest strategies.

Finally, users can receive full-chain income without worry through the interest-bearing certificates they hold.

Frank: From the perspective of ecological cooperation, how do you evaluate the synergistic value of StakeStone × USD1 this time? Does this mean that the two sides will form a long-term alliance of stablecoin + liquidity protocols to jointly penetrate multi-chain and cross-regional markets?

Charles: We will be a one-stop portal for USD1 from minting to distribution in the future.

In the crypto field, we have issued a dedicated LiquidityPad vault for USD1 to help it expand its multi-chain DeFi scenario. At the same time, it will also release RWA+CeDeFi products based on USD1 to provide stable interest-bearing services. In the field of traditional finance, we are promoting payment license applications and cooperation, with the goal of achieving a compliant and low-friction path for users to directly mint USD1 from fiat currency, truly opening up the entrance to off-chain funds.

For this closed loop to truly land and run, it still needs to rely on the promotion of three key variables: first, regulatory progress, such as the smooth implementation of policies such as the US Stablecoin Act, will directly determine the legitimacy of USD1's fiat currency channel; secondly, the scenario penetration capability, that is, whether small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border freelancers, and global trade institutions adopt USD1 as a collection tool on a large scale; Finally, the scalability of interest-bearing products, that is, whether the on-chain income of USD1 can be further expanded to off-chain assets such as RWA and treasury bonds, CeDeFi, etc.

The biggest alpha in 2025 will be "legal stablecoins", and the real implementation of the closed loop depends on the joint drive of the troika of regulation, scenarios, and products.

What's next?

"The stablecoin industry has entered the second half, and the focus of competition is shifting from volume and traffic to compliance capabilities and scenario penetration."

In addition to product cooperation, Charles also shared his understanding of stablecoins for the future landscape of the industry in this conversation, believing that legal stablecoins are an epoch-making watershed moment in the crypto industry, specifically:

• The emergence of legal stablecoins will gradually erode the market for traditional fiat currencies in cross-border payments. Because it is clear that crypto stablecoins have lower ledger security maintenance costs and lower global access costs.
• The emergence of legal stablecoins will end the existing P2P deposit and withdrawal structure, and will eventually be replaced by legal exchange license companies in various countries.
• The emergence of legal stablecoins will gradually blur the business boundaries between traditional banks and Web3 stablecoin asset management projects, and in the future, the two will only have different ledger accounting methods (centralized database accounting VS on-chain bookkeeping) and different regulatory requirements, and their business boundaries will become closer and closer.

Therefore, StakeStone will firmly embrace the stablecoin market in 2025, especially emerging stablecoins like USD1 that have the most potential to become legitimate stablecoins.