World Liberty Financial, you know, the DeFi project with a nod to President Donald Trump, officially announced on Tuesday their plan to launch USD1. This isn’t just any stablecoin – it’s designed with big players like institutions and sovereign investors in mind.

Zach Witkoff, co-founder of WLFI, highlighted the unique appeal of USD1, stating, “USD1 offers something that those purely algorithmic and anonymous crypto ventures can’t. It’s DeFi power, but built on a foundation of credibility and security that you’d expect from the most respected names in traditional finance.”

So, how solid is it? USD1 is designed to be rock solid! It’ll be redeemable one-to-one with good old US dollars, backed entirely by super-safe stuff like short-term US government treasuries, dollar deposits, and cash equivalents.

Good news for platform diversity! The team mentioned they’re launching on both Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, and they’re even thinking about expanding to other platforms down the line. When’s launch day? Still a secret for now!

To make sure everything’s top-notch, WLFI has teamed up with BitGo – these guys are big hitters in digital asset security – to handle custody and prime brokerage for USD1. And for extra trust, the reserves will be checked regularly by an independent accounting firm.

Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, also weighed in, explaining, “Our clients need both things: security and speed. This partnership with WLFI ticks both boxes. It gives them great liquidity, but also the peace of mind knowing the reserves are safely tucked away and managed by pros within a regulated setup.”

Initial tests and other key products

This announcement comes hot on the heels of WLFI’s test runs for USD1 on BNB Chain, as Crypto Briefing reported just this Monday. And get this, Wintermute even jumped in to test cross-chain transfers between Ethereum and BNB Chain!

Speaking of progress, the launch of USD1 follows WLFI successfully wrapping up two token sales, raking in a cool $550 million in total! This cash injection is set to fuel even more exciting things to come.

Folkman, in a recent chat with Chainlink’s co-founder Sergey Nazarov, gave us a sneak peek into their pipeline, saying, “Looking at what we’re building, we’ve really got three core products in the works. And guess what? Two of them are already finished and ready to roll out!”

Folkman let slip that these two ready-to-go products are: first, a smart contract powered lend-and-borrow market; and second, a protocol all about real-world assets (RWAs).

Now, here’s a twist: unlike typical DeFi lending platforms that run on DAOs, World Liberty Financial will be steering its lending market themselves, using their own governance system. The goal? To be the go-to platform for traditional financial institutions wanting to get into tokenized assets.

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