What Is mStable-USD (mUSD)?

mStable (mUSD) is a noncustodial and self-governing stablecoin infrastructure to offer a base layer collateral protocol to develop DeFi applications and the creation of meta-assets, which are fully backed by a diversified basket of existing tokenized same-base assets. Noncustodial stablecoins are tokens where the private key to the wallet is completely controlled by its owner without involvement of a third party. Each meta-asset is a pegged-value crypto asset and represents a liquidity share in the underlying asset pool. Besides, these assets are minted or redeemed on-chain via the noncustodial mStable smart contracts. Smart contracts are just like regular contracts; however, instead of being drafted on paper, these contracts run in the form of protocols on blockchain. The mStable contracts allow underlying assets to be exchanged or swapped for a fee. Through the meta-asset creation, mStable caters to the following problems:

• Significant fragmentation in same-peg crypto assets 

• Lack of yield in pegged crypto assets and traditional currencies

• No protection against permanent capital loss in pegged crypto assets

mStable assets are designed to generate a native yield for users who deposit mBTC or mUSD into mStable's Save Contract. mUSD is introduced by mStable as the first meta-asset composed of USD stablecoin assets, whereas mBTC is a crypto asset pegged to BTC price, backed by a tokenized BTC pool on the Ethereum network. Save Contract is mStable's non-custodial savings account, designed to be an accessible and reliable place to earn yield on the pegged-value crypto assets. 

When users deposit their mUSD or mBTC assets into the Save Contract, they earn yield. Further, the user gets an yield-bearing imUSD or imBTC token. These yield-bearing tokens only appreciate over time and do not have a one-to-one relationship to the underlying peg's value. They can be redeemed for the underlying mBTC or mUSD at any time, resulting in the user receiving the accrued yield along with the original deposit.

In addition, mUSD aims to serve the following utilities:

• Serve as a store of value in DeFi, a unit of account, or a medium of exchange.

• Provide liquidity with the mUSD in mStable's feeder pools to earn swap fees. mStable feeder pools are liquidity pools composed of 50% mUSD or mBTC and 50% another asset that shares the same peg.

• Depositing mUSD into the mStable Save Contract to receive yield-bearing imUSD. imUSD can be used to earn MTA rewards by depositing into the mStable vault. In a vault, savers can store imBTC or imUSD to earn MTA rewards. The mStable protocol is governed by the native governance token, MTA.

Further, MTA, as a governance token of the mStable protocol, has the following utility on the ecosystem:

• Can be used for liquidity mining to bootstrap a decentralized community of governors. 

• Can be staked to earn staking rewards and boosted rewards across the protocol to incentivize long-term holders.

• By staking, MTA governors can vote on the direction of the protocol, parameters, and funding.

• mStable uses value accrual mechanisms to drive value to MTA as the protocol grows.

History of mStable-USD    

James Simpson is the cofounder of the mStable platform.

How Are New mStable-USD Created? 

mUSD can be acquired in the following ways:

• Minting new mUSD by depositing one or more whitelisted or preapproved USD stablecoins. The deposit has to be made into the underlying pool, and the user receives mUSD in return. 

• Using mStable feeder pools to exchange supported USD stablecoin assets for mUSD.

For MTA, the users choose to deposit MTA into the staking contract and receive voting power, MTA rewards, and boosted rewards in return.

The MTA Staking v2 was launched on August 16, 2021, and is the upgraded version of Staking-1 (ended in September 2021). The new staking implementation offered many changes to the way users can stake MTA to become MTA governors, including:

• Quests that allow users to earn seasonal or permanent voting power and rewards multipliers on specific tasks completion were introduced. This incentivizes voter alignment and engagement with the long-term success of the platform. 

• Users can earn rewards multipliers based on the time length they have staked their MTAs. This has eliminated the need for the predetermined time for locking up MTA. 

• In case of an adverse event, a cool-down period is introduced to ensure that the governors cannot remove the stake quickly.

• To disincentive short-term staking and voting, a decaying withdrawal fee is introduced. 

How Many mStable-USD Are There?

MTA has a maximum total supply of 100,000,000 tokens.

How to Buy mStable-USD

mStable can be obtained on decentralized and centralized exchanges like Coinbase.