The newly launched stablecoin protocol, Usual, has recently experienced a significant deviation in the exchange rate of its stablecoin collateral product, USD0++. This has caused widespread concern within the community. It is understood that the cause of this incident was due to a modification made by the Usual team to their official documentation this morning, changing the baseline exchange rate of USD0++ to USD0 from the original 1:1 ratio to 1:0.87, resulting in a severe deviation of USD0++.
(Introduction: USUAL’s opening price on Binance surged against the market, showing its resilience against the Federal Reserve’s airdrop. How strong is it?)
(Background: USUAL, a decentralized stablecoin protocol, is listed on Binance’s new coin mining Launchpool and pre-market. What is it?)
Usual suddenly changes USD0++ related documents
Looking closely at the cause of this deviation incident, it originated from a modification made by the official documentation this morning. The document mentioned the floor price of USD0++:
“The floor price reflects the expected return that the DAO can obtain before the expiration of USD0++. This price is calculated based on the Fed interest rate and is interpolated between available interest rates to ensure accuracy. Currently, the floor price is manually set (e.g., 1 USD0++ corresponds to 0.87 USD0), but it will be developed into an automated on-chain process in the future, integrating dynamic interest rate data through oracles such as Chainlink or Redstone. With the passage of time, the floor price will gradually approach 1, aligning with the expiration date of the protocol. This mechanism ensures the value of USUAL and maintains stable returns for USD0++ while rewarding long-term participants in the ecosystem and providing liquidity options for others.”
In the modified document, the baseline exchange rate of USD0++ was reduced from 1 USD0 to 0.87 USD0. Although the document stated that it would gradually approach a 1:1 exchange rate in the future, it still caused panic and accusations from the community users. Community KOL @Cbb0fe accused Usual of fraud in a tweet:
“Oh my god, the Usual team updated the document about USD0++ 6 hours ago. It’s clearly fraud.”
In addition, community KOL @OlimpioCrypto also stated that the team lowered the exchange rate to 0.87, causing a sudden 13% disappearance in the USD0++ market cap:
“They allowed users to mint/purchase USD0++ at a price of 1 USD, without any discount, with a 1:1 design, and then suddenly implemented a new floor price of 0.87, effectively locking up (or evaporating) 13% of the principal, involving funds up to $1.5 billion.”
User withdrawals cause significant skew in Curve pool
After the news broke, the USD0++/USD0 pool on Curve with a Total Value Locked (TVL) of $245 million also experienced intense user withdrawals. According to Curve data, the pool ratio has skewed significantly, with USD++ accounting for 91.82% and USD0 accounting for 8.18%.
Currently, the exchange rate of USD0++ reached its lowest point at 0.9 USD0 at 1 p.m. and then rebounded, currently reporting 0.9532 USD0.
As for the price of USD0, it has not been affected and remains pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio. Interestingly, the governance token of Usual, USUAL, has not been significantly affected either, with only a 0.1% decline in the past 24 hours.
