Cryptocurrency trading platform Paxos has introduced a yield-generating, USD-denominated stablecoin called the Lift Dollar (USDL), regulated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the company said on Wednesday.
The stablecoin is issued by Paxos International, the firm’s UAE division, and regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
The largest stablecoin issuers, such as Tether and Circle, gather billions of dollars worth of interest on the T-Bills they hold, which has led to the creation of several yield-sharing stablecoins and blockchain-based U.S. Treasury products.
Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla said the new Lift Dollar is structured the same way as the other stablecoins issued by his firm: PayPal USD (PYUSD), Pax Dollar (USDP) and Pax Gold (PAXG). These are matched 1:1 with dollars, backed by short-term U.S. government securities, and all are overseen by a prudential regulator with all assets safely positioned remote from a potential bankruptcy situation, he said.
“We’ve added programmatic daily yield so this looks a little bit more like a savings product than a checking account product, which is maybe the way to think about traditional stablecoins,” Cascarilla said in an interview. “[USDL] is going one step further from democratizing access to dollars, to also democratizing the risk-free rate, in the safest manner possible.”
Paxos USDL will not be available in the U.S. because of a lack of regulatory guidance.
At launch, USDL will be particularly focused on Argentina, where it will be available to consumers via distribution partners Ripio, Buenbit and TiendaCrypto, according to a press release.
“For the launch, we’re foregoing the 30 basis points (bips) of our asset management fee. So we’re only holding back 20 bips meaning users will get more than 5%,” Daya said in an interview.
Edited by Parikshit Mishra.
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Ian Allison is an award-winning senior reporter at CoinDesk. He holds ETH.
