TL;DR: A stablecoin is a crypto asset designed to hold a fixed value, typically pegged to $1. They come in four main types: fiat-backed, crypto-collateralized, algorithmic, and RWA-backed. Yield-bearing stablecoins earn a return on top of that peg. Understanding which mechanism backs a stablecoin, and how resilient that mechanism
Stablewatch Memo #2: Recent weeks provided a clear demonstration of how modern financial systems handle stress. When redemption requests hit 9.3% of outstanding shares, BlackRock gated its $26 billion HLEND fund, trapping investor capital behind a 5% quarterly cap. Meanwhile, onchain lending protocols processed over $51.7 billion in
Delivering Institutional-Grade Risk and Data Infrastructure to DeFi's Largest Balance Sheet Onchain yield markets have crossed $20 billion. The infrastructure to assess risk, compare opportunities, and satisfy due diligence has not kept up. Stablewatch is here to fix that. As a new core contributor to the Sky Ecosystem,
AI infrastructure spending is reshaping credit markets. How collateralized lending, DeFi rails, and asset-based finance are closing a multi-trillion-dollar funding gap.
This article was made possible with the support of @idOS_network Executive Summary The stablecoin economy has transitioned from a crypto niche into a $290 billion financial powerhouse, and is currently experiencing an explosive growth, characterized by an 89.4% YoY surge in volume. This rapid expansion, underpinned by formalizing
Aave V4 Since its inception in 2017 as ETHLend, Aave has been a pioneering force in DeFi, emerging as one of the first protocols to enable peer-to-peer lending on Ethereum. Over the years, it evolved into a dominant player in the DeFi lending landscape, boasting billions in total value locked
This article is part of the Redstone “Yield Bearing Assets & Stablecoins Report 2025”, where Stablewatch is a co-author. The architecture of the digital asset economy is on the cusp of a fundamental transformation, catalyzed by the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. A landmark
AI's Value Bypass The proliferation of generative AI has introduced a systemic inefficiency into the digital economy. It arises not from a flaw, but from a fundamental architectural incompatibility between how autonomous agents consume information and how the web has historically monetized its creation. The result is the
The Yield-Bearing Stablecoin (YBS) market has fundamentally evolved into a complex, multi-billion dollar ecosystem. Navigating this landscape today demands more than simple APY trackers; it requires a sophisticated, data-driven framework. To accommodate for the growing complexity of this market, we are launching a major evolution of the stablewatch.io analytics
Executive Summary The USD.AI protocol marks a significant architectural evolution in decentralized finance, establishing the "InfraFi" paradigm to bridge onchain liquidity with the capital-intensive world of artificial intelligence compute. Its design is a direct response to a dual-sided market needs: the AI industry’s insatiable requirement for
USDD 2.0: From Tron to Ethereum and Beyond Launched in May 2022 by the TRON DAO Reserve (TDR), Decentralised USD (USDD) began as a hybrid algorithmic stablecoin. However, in a strategic response to historical skepticism surrounding algorithmic models the project underwent a significant restructuring in January of 2025 which
Explore how crypto payment cards bridge digital assets and global commerce, using stablecoins, custodial vs non-custodial models, and fintech.