Stablecoins hold one of the leading roles in the whole crypto space. This statement can be easily proved by looking at the share of stablecoins in total value locked, which exceeds $140 billion as of the beginning of October 2022 (about 15% of the whole crypto TVL). Furthermore, according to Coinmarketcap, the monthly volume of Tether (USDT) is approximately $1,400 billion, exceeding even the monthly Bitcoin volume, which was “only” about $1,190 billion in September 2022.
In this article, we aren’t going to explain how stablecoins work and which models they usually use to provide price equality to fiat. We have a video podcast and its text version for anyone who wants to know more. Today we want to inform you about the stablecoin market on the Tezos blockchain.
According to DefiLlama, the total Tezos stablecoins market cap is $74m. Several projects issue stablecoins for the Tezos blockchain. Examples are Tether, Tezos Stable Technologies, youves, Stably, Kolibri, Plenty, Wrap Protocol, and Lugh.
For your better understanding, we will describe the characteristics of each stablecoin type before presenting it to you. Stablecoins differ by collateralizing types and issuer governance models.
| Type | Features | Example |
| Fiat-Collateralized Stablecoins | – Centralized – minted by trusted entities one-to-one; – Authorities may block stablecoins on your account; – Have reserves on a regulated account; – Protocol owners often invest part of the reserve funds in obligations for profit; – Susceptible to regulators’ fiat. | Tether |
| Crypto-Baked Stablecoins | – Always overcollateralized to enable a decentralized model; – Your collateral is at risk of liquidation. | DAI |
| Commodity-Baked Stablecoins | – Similar to fiat-based but the collateral is in commodities. | Paxos Gold (PAXG) |
| Algorithmic Stablecoins | – Not fully collateralized, but uses a set of incentives and a mathematical model instead; – Risk of eventual deprecation. | Iron Finance |
List of Stablecoins on Tezos
USDT (Tether)
Market Cap: $60.78m
USDT contract address
On 9 July, Tether announced the release of USDT on the Tezos blockchain. Since USDT is the most popular USD-pegged stablecoin, it has also become the most popular stablecoin on Tezos (USDT dominance has reached 81.94%). All Tether tokens are pegged at 1-to-1 with a matching fiat currency (e.g., 1 USD₮ = 1 USD) and are 100% fiat-backed by Tether’s reserves. USDT from Tether can be minted by an entity that has passed KYC and has provided appropriate fiat collateral using the Tether platform. Tether is owned by iFinex, the Hong Kong-registered company that owns the crypto exchange BitFinex. You can buy Tezos-built USDT on Binance, and other CEXes.
uUSD (youves)
Market Cap: $9,875,862
uUSD contract address
uUSD is an algorithmic stablecoin from the youves platform that is pegged to the fiat USD. It is a fungible token backed by crypto collateral. uUSD offers interest income in uUSD to its holders. Users mint uUSD by depositing an accepted collateral asset into a vault. TEZ, USDt, tzBTC, and SIRS are available as collateral for minting uUSD using the youves platform. When the loan is repaid, the paid-back uUSD is burned. You can buy uUSD on youves or any DEX on Tezos.
EURL (Lugh)
Market Cap: $4,991,066
EURL contract address
EURL is a fiat-backed euro stablecoin. It is issued and managed by Lugh and fully backed by a euro reserve held at SG (Societe Generale). Users can instantly buy the EURL stablecoin on their wallets by card or bank transfer using the Mt.Pelerin platform or the Coinhouse app. It is possible to mint EURL without KYC, but this method contains some limitations.
KUSD (Kolibri)
Market Cap: $1,604,181
KUSD contract address
Kolibri is a Tezos-based crypto-collateralized stablecoin built on the Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs) schema. Using the Kolibri app, users can mint KUSD by depositing an accepted collateral asset (for example, TEZ) into an oven. When the loan is repaid to retrieve the collateral, the paid-back KUSD is burned. Price data is provided via the Harbinger Price Feed via the Oracle contract.
USDtz or USDtez (Tezos Stable Technologies)
Market Cap: $698,950
USDtz contract address
USDtz is a USD-pegged crypto-collateralized stablecoin and the first stablecoin on the Tezos blockchain. The USDtz minting portal allows the creation of new USDtz tokens by locking collateral, and the withdrawal of collateral to get back your USDtz. Only enrolled USDtz minters can operate the minting portal. Other users can get access to mint new USDtz stablecoins with their USDC on the Ethereum blockchain with the help of one of the “minteries” (among them Canadian Bakin’, Kryptstar, and YieldWallet.io).
USDS (Stably)
USDS contract address
USDS is a fiat-collateralized stablecoin created by Stably and issued by Prime Trust, a Nevada-chartered trust company. Dollar collateral is held in FDIC-insured trust accounts managed by Prime Trust (an SEC-qualified custodian) through Stably’s platform. To begin stablecoin issuance, users must register on Stably Prime and complete the KYC.
USDT.e, USDC.e, BUSD.e (Plenty)
Plenty Bridge FA2 token contract
These are crypto-collateralized stablecoins from the Ethereum chain on Tezos. Plenty Bridge allows the transferring of BUSD, DAI, USDC, and USDT stablecoins to Tezos using the lock-and-mint method (or burn-and-unlock for the reverse process). To mint .e-type stablecoins using Plenty Bridge, users need an Ethereum address with the required stablecoins.
wHUSD, wUSDC, wUSDT, wBUSD (Wrap Protocol; now on Plenty Bridge)
Wrapped stablecoins were moved from other chains with the help of Wrap Protocol. Several months ago, Wrap Protocol was integrated into Plenty, and now users can swap wAssets of the Wrap Protocol for new .e tokens using a particular section of Plenty Bridge.
Conclusions
Tezos is a relatively young ecosystem in the DeFi space. However, it already contains enough USD and other stablecoins that allow users to work with fiat value inside the blockchain. Furthermore, all tokens described in our article can be minted according to predetermined rules or purchased using Tezos-built DEXs, such as QuipuSwap, Plenty DeFi, Vortex DEX, and others.
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