Another so-called stablecoin has gone unstable, losing its peg to the U.S. dollar and plummeting in value by 50% within hours on Wednesday.
USDR—a “rebasing” stablecoin issued by asset tokenization protocol Tangible—traded for $0.996 at 7:53 am ET on Wednesday before dropping to just $0.50 by noon.
Stablecoins are designed to maintain price parity with relatively “stable” assets, including fiat currencies like U.S. dollars. When stablecoins lose their peg, it's usually due to the instability of the asset reserves backing their token, or a failure to satisfy holder redemption requests as they come in – though there may be other causes.
“It's an ongoing situation,” said Jay Singh, co-founder and CEO of Tangible, to Decrypt when asked about what caused the depeg. “We'll have announcements soon about post-mortem and real estate liquidations to replenish DAI to make users whole.”
USDR boasts an unusual reserve composition featuring tokenized real estate. Besides acting as a dollar substitute, the coin promises holders to yield using rental revenue derived from such real-estate holdings.
Tangible’s website lists USDR’s current yield at 6.38%, while its native token TNGBL produces 10.00% APY.
Most popular stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are backed solely by cash and short-term US debt, a commonly used reserve composition for generating profits while being able to honor redemptions.
According to Chainlink’s Proof of Reserve (PoR) system proving Tangible’s ownership of collateral, the issuer still holds $49,590,552 in reserves. Though enough to back the 45 million USDR tokens in circulation, it's a major drop from the $80 million+ figure the on-chain audit displayed on Tuesday.
The firm’s website also states that “up to 50%” of the provider’s reserves are kept in DAI, a decentralized stablecoin largely backed by USDC.
“If the collateralization ratio ever drops beneath 100%, then 50% of the rental yield will be automatically redirected to the treasury, recollateralizing the asset and ensuring Real USD is always fully backed,” the site reads.
The U.S. House Financial Services Committee passed stablecoin legislation in July that would require stablecoin issuers to back their tokens solely with cash, cash equivalents, and Treasury bills.