Another day, another stablecoin launch. Kinda reminds me of Ethereum and its L2s. Markets don’t really need another one, but it’s a prosperous business, as seen in Tether’s reported unprecedented net profits of ~$13 billion in 2024. Who can blame the issuers?

L2 gross profit margin:

ZKsync’s gross profit margin has fallen to its lowest level since May 2024, according to Blockworks Research. While peers like Optimism and Base maintain upwards of 85% margins for the past year, ZKsync’s profitability has sharply declined over the past two weeks.

The drop tracks with several warning signs around network usage: Daily transactions and active addresses each fell over 60% quarter over quarter, and new contract creation is down 67%. The timing coincides with ZKsync’s decision to scale back its Ignite incentive program this month, triggering a steep drop in TVL. With no major growth catalysts in play, margins have suffered — highlighting the challenge of sustaining profitability for any network once token incentives dry up.

While EIP-4844 slashed costs across all L2s, starting a year ago with the Dencun upgrade to Ethereum, ZKsync has struggled to keep up with its optimistic rollup counterparts in terms of turning DA savings into network profit.

Theoretically, zk rollups have an edge in terms of economies of scale, but that’s little help when usage is flat to down.

— Macauley Peterson

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Fidelity wants a stablecoin

Another day, another stablecoin launch. 

Fidelity Investments is looking to launch its own stablecoin through its digital assets arm, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

There’s few details on the Fidelity stablecoin currently, but a safe guess is that it’ll be backed by US Treasurys.

As regulatory risk looks to be coming off the table for crypto assets, a rapid number of companies from both TradFi and DeFi are eyeing Tether’s billion-dollar throne and looking to tap into the digital dollar business.

At Blockworks’ Digital Assets Summit 2025, executive director of the president’s council of advisers on digital assets Bo Hines indicated that the much-anticipated stablecoin legislation is “imminent” and “could be on the president’s desk in the next two months.”

A bill is set to be introduced in the House today.

Interesting timing — just yesterday, the Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial (WLF) also announced a USD1 stablecoin.

USD1 is a centralized stablecoin asset backed by short-term US T-bills and US dollar deposits, and custodied by BitGo — the same custodian behind the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) asset.

WLF’s official press release labels USD1 an “institutional-ready” stablecoin, but its launch on Ethereum and BNB Chain suggests it will be accessible to retail users alike.

What would a market of potentially hundreds of stablecoins be good for?

“In traditional FX markets, the US dollar is around 57% of the market. Stablecoins will unleash existing FX markets eventually in ways that are superior to how FX markets trade today,” CoinFund’s Chris Perkins told me at DAS last week.

Market competition

USD1 will also notably offer no yield for users. 

That is perhaps an odd thing to flag for a stable dollar asset.

Consider, however, that yield-bearing stablecoins in the world of DeFi are fast becoming table stakes in order to find footing in a crowded stablecoin market.

Noble’s USDN and Usual’s USD0 are some examples of newer stablecoins that are giving up the yield from their T-bill backing to users.

While USDC is not yield-bearing by default, Coinbase also announced last November yields rewards for USDC holders — currently a 4.1% yield.

Stablecoins launched by regulated entities are likely omitting a yield-bearing component to avoid being labelled as a security.

How then might USD1 compete? The answer is probably business development deals and incentives.

“Absent an existing deposit base, customer checking accounts or payment network, World Liberty Financial will likely rely on deals to seed deposits for USD1. This could include yield pass packs to depositors, where the underlying T-bill, money market or cash equivalent yield is passed back to the private party that seeded the deposit, or an agreement for the exchange of WLFI tokens,” Blockworks’ Luke Leasure said.

“On the market, WLF could configure the interest rate model (IRM) on the money market for USD1 to make it more favorable for either suppliers or borrowers. This may allow WLF to return a favorable yield to suppliers at the expense of borrowers paying a premium, or allow for borrowers to borrow at a discount to prevailing market rates at the expense of suppliers earning a discount.”

Meanwhile, total onchain stablecoin market cap continues to break all time-highs, at $225.9 billion. The mass majority (56.5%) is on Ethereum.

— Donovan Choy

Maple’s SyrupUSDC gets a Morpho boost

Maple’s SyrupUSDC just got more composable. A new Morpho vault has launched, enabling users to post SyrupUSDC as collateral to borrow USDC — with funds supplied by vault curators Gauntlet and MEV Capital.

This marks SyrupUSDC’s first integration with a major lending platform. Backed by overcollateralized loans and yielding around 11–12% natively, SyrupUSDC can now also be looped for additional yield (~5% per loop), thanks to a 91.5% loan-to-value ratio. USDC borrow rates sit at roughly 5-6%, with a $20m initial cap across both markets.

For degen strategists, the capital efficiency unlock is the real story. Yield-bearing collateral that can also be rehypothecated is a rarity, although this sort of composability is likely to become more commonplace in the coming years.

The vault is the result of collaboration between Maple, Morpho, Gauntlet and MEV Capital. Gauntlet and MEV set risk parameters and supply the USDC; Maple brings the yield-bearing asset; Morpho handles the matching engine.

With SyrupUSDC already paired on Pendle, Balancer and Uniswap, this adds another route for institutions and individuals to earn — or lever up — within DeFi.

— Macauley Peterson