"The True Dollar: a review of the TrueUSD coin"
TrueUSD is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar at 1:1. While it may not be the undisputed leader in rankings, TUSD has already been recognized as a legitimate form of payment in Dominica, a small island nation in the Caribbean basin.
TrueUSD (TUSD) is a stablecoin based on Ethereum and created by Archblock (formerly TrustToken until fall 2022). It was launched in the United States for a limited pool of investors in January 2018. TrustToken was founded by Raphael Cosman, who specializes in cryptography and AI. He previously worked for software companies Palantir and Google, where he left to develop his own project.
Archblock has formulated its mission as "creating the most transparent and efficient asset management platform in the world." In pursuit of this goal, the company introduced TrueFi, a DeFi lending protocol for real and crypto lending.
"Borrow to earn high and stable yields from TUSD. Borrow without collateral requirements," the protocol's creators briefly describe its operation.
TrueFi's main credit products include:
- DAO Pools: provide unsecured lending through the interaction of lenders, borrowers, and stakers.
- Single Borrower Pools: fixed-rate loans for a fixed term.
- Automated Lines of Credit (ALOCs): give the borrower unrestricted access to capital and the right to only pay interest monthly (without repayment of the loan principal) until the credit line is exhausted.
- Portfolio: Crypto lending for the real economy.
"Since November 2020, TrueFi loan volume has soared above $1.3 billion. Unfortunately, in the fall of 2022, the project encountered its first default. This involved a $3.4 million loan issued to a South Korean enterprise, Blockwater Technologies. This loan constituted approximately 2% of TrueFi's total outstanding loan value at that time and was restructured to mitigate the issue."
Data source: CoinMarketCap
TrueUSD features
In addition to TrueUSD, the TrueFi ecosystem also includes other stablecoins: TCAD and TAUD for the Canadian and Australian dollar, TGBP for the British pound, and THKD for the Hong Kong dollar. Owners of all TrueTokens have the right to vote on the assessment of borrower reliability, loans to third parties, and development issues for TrueFi products as a whole.
Since February 2023, TrueUSD has been using Chainlink as the source for Proof of Reserves. Data on TUSD dollar reserves held in financial institutions' accounts are aggregated in real-time by The Network Firm LLP and transmitted to the decentralized Chainlink oracle network. Using the PoR data stream, the TUSD smart contract verifies that the token's supply does not exceed its collateralization. A new stablecoin must undergo such verification before it can be issued.
TrueUSD is one of the top 5 stablecoins by market capitalization
Source: CoinMarketCap
- As of March 2023, TrueUSD's market capitalization exceeded $1.16 billion, with a circulating supply of 1,166,133,267 TUSD.
- The coin's issuance is not limited and expands in response to demand.
- TrueUSD is available in three versions on Ethereum, TRON, and BSC.
