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

Words: Web3 farmer Frank

What is the core competitiveness of the stablecoin business?

"Credit".

StakeStone founder Charles' reply was blunt and naked, and in the stablecoin war, the typical embodiment of "credit" is the credit endorsement of the Trump family like USD1. In less than 100 days, USD1 has 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 world's fifth largest stablecoin (CoinMarketCap data), and fully landing on HTX, Bitget, Binance and other top CEXs, in contrast, PYUSD, which has been supported by PayPal for two years, is still struggling to promote penetration.

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

So, why did StakeStone get this first ticket?

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

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

Widespread on-chain adoption of USD1 must be achieved through a hub for full-chain liquidity. Therefore, according to Charles, in fact, as early as the second half of 2024, StakeStone started negotiations with World Liberty Finance (WLFI), the issuer behind USD1, on the cooperation on full-chain liquidity.

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

From this point of view, StakeStone eating USD1 is a tacit understanding between WLFI and USD1, and 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 pieces of this round of new stablecoin narrative.

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

When asked why StakeStone became the first DeFi minter for USD1, Charles first broke down the issuance mechanism of USD1:

After completing the compliance process such as KYC verification, institutional users need to deposit US dollars into the designated custodian bank account, and after WLFI verifies that the funds have arrived, the institution can mint USD1 in a minimum unit of 100 US dollars - but the USD1 balance in this process is still stuck in the account system and has not yet been put on the chain, and must enter the public chain world through "withdrawal", and at present, 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. The first is to rely on the official cross-chain bridge, but this is far from enough, which can only solve the "cross-chain existence" of assets, but cannot build a complete application scenario; The second is to build an independent full-chain distribution system through partners.

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

According to Charles, StakeStone and the WLFI team have been in contact for several rounds 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 returns, which can quickly introduce USD1 into real DeFi application scenarios. This also means that from the beginning of USD1's birth, StakeStone has not only been a "minting party", but more like a strategic partner towards its multi-chain ecology - not only as a core hub to realize the full-chain distribution of USD1, but also responsible for building interest-bearing products on DeFi chains, providing income certificates, and creating the on-chain use soil for USD1, so as to realize the integration of "fiat currency deposit→ minting→ multi-chain distribution→ on-chain and off-chain scene docking" in the future, which is USD1 Build a real one-stop liquidity closed-loop service.

Here are the questions from the interview:

Frank: We see that StakeStone is the "official full-chain liquidity support partner of the USD1 stablecoin", can you tell us more about the cooperation with WLFI, and what core support and services will StakeStone provide to USD1?

Charles: At present, we are not only the minting service provider of USD1, but also deeply involved in its governance ecology, and undertake the construction of full-chain liquidity.

• Payment products: Launched a USD1-based collection tool to support global businesses to receive USD1 directly through Visa/Mastercard, and connect to the traditional banking system as stablecoins become legal;

• Full-chain DeFi yield products: Launched USD1's one-stop full-chain yield product, USD1 LiquidityPad Vault product, on the chain;

• CeDeFi products: At the same time, we will build USD1CeDeFi products that combine with traditional financial institutions' USD wealth management products and quantitative trading income;

• Construction of compliance channels: Apply for multi-country payment licenses, open up a one-stop exchange path for fiat currencies → USD1, and gradually replace OTC channels;

Frank: At present, 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), early participation in its technical path planning, based on our successful liquidity distribution experience in multiple projects, the USD1 team recognized our capabilities in the construction of a multi-chain ecosystem, and the two parties finally reached a strategic partnership.

Frank: StakeStone has not 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 really didn't have a stablecoin product before, and this partnership is the first step for us to enter the stablecoin infrastructure, and we will definitely build a full suite of products around USD1 in the future, including USD1's LiquidityPad full-chain liquidity distribution vault, USD1 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 whole set of "stablecoin-as-a-service" solutions for USD1.

Frank: As the "first DeFi protocol molder of USD1", will ordinary users be able to directly mint or exchange USD1 across chains through StakeStone in the future?

Charles: We definitely hope to encapsulate this mechanism, for example, users bind bank cards through the StakeStone front-end, directly deposit fiat currency, and then the system backend mints USD1 through our institutional account, and then bridges to the user's selected target chain, so as to achieve a one-stop experience 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 regions with clear compliance licenses to open up payment channels, and users may be able to deposit and exchange USD1 through credit cards, SWIFT, wire transfers, etc. in the future.

"The larger application scenario of USD1 is not in the cryptocurrency circle", and the full-chain liquidity × a new growth paradigm for global liquidity

"USD1's larger application scenario is not in the currency circle."

StakeStone is also preparing a USD1-based payment product to provide compliant and efficient global aggregate acquiring products for small and medium-sized enterprises, digital nomads, self-employed individuals, and more.

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

Here are the questions from the interview:

Frank: The full-chain stablecoin distribution product may be a bit abstract to understand, can you give an example of how ordinary users can use USD1 across the chain, participate in different ecosystems and earn income through StakeStone?

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

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

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

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

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

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

In order for this closed loop to be truly implemented and run through, it still needs to rely on the promotion of three key variables: first, regulatory progress, such as whether policies such as the U.S. "Stablecoin Act" can be successfully implemented, will directly determine the legitimacy of USD1's fiat currency channel; The second is scenario penetration capability, that is, whether small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border freelancers, and global trade institutions have adopted USD1 as a collection tool on a large scale; Finally, the ability to scale interest-bearing products, that is, whether the on-chain income of USD1 can be further extended to off-chain assets such as RWA, treasury bonds, CeDeFi, etc.

The biggest alpha in 2025 is the "legal stablecoin", and the real landing 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 collaborations, Charles also shared his understanding of the future landscape of stablecoins in this conversation, and he believes that legal stablecoins are an epoch-making watershed moment for the crypto industry, specifically:

• The emergence of legal stablecoins will gradually encroach on the market of 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 put an end to 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 the two will only have different ledger bookkeeping methods (centralized database bookkeeping VS on-chain bookkeeping) and different regulatory requirements in the future, and their business boundaries will be closer and closer.

Therefore, StakeStone will firmly embrace the stablecoin market in 2025, especially emerging stablecoins such as USD1, which have the most potential to become legal stablecoins.