Yield-bearing Treasury-backed stablecoin USDY launches on Aptos

Stablecoin issuers are becoming some of the largest buyers of United States government debt at a time of increased de-dollarization.

The Aptos Foundation, which fosters development on the Aptos decentralized network, announced the launch of Ondo Finance’s yield-bearing stablecoin, Ondo US Dollar Yield (USDY), on the Aptos blockchain.

According to the Aptos Foundation, USDY, an instrument backed by United States Treasurys, will be available for non-US residents using the Aptos blockchain. The digital asset has not yet been registered under the Securities Act in the US.

In the announcement, the Aptos Foundation noted the benefits of stablecoins in serving underserved communities and democratizing finance.

Stablecoin issuers are becoming a sponge for US debt 

Oddly enough, stablecoin issuers and other companies within the crypto industry are becoming large buyers of US government debt.

Tether, which backs its stablecoin Tether (USDT) with US dollar reserves and US Treasury bills, is one example. In 2023, the stablecoin issuer revealed that it held $72.5 billion in US Treasury bills.

Related: Stablecoin adoption poses greater risk for developing nations.

The potential for stablecoins to benefit the US dollar has even attracted the attention of former US lawmaker Paul Ryan. The former speaker of the US House of Representatives highlighted the role dollar-pegged stablecoins could play in creating demand for the dollar amid geopolitical efforts to abandon it in international trade settlements. This demand could potentially extend US dollar dominance by decades.

In July, Binance.US became one of the latest crypto companies to gain regulatory approval to invest customer funds in US Treasury bills. The deal stipulated that Binance.US could invest in the instruments as long as it used a third-party custodian for the funds and did not invest the customer funds back into Binance.US or Binance-related business operations.

A $3 billion market opportunity by the end of 2024?

Research strategist Tom Wan believes that the tokenized US Treasury market will reach $3 billion by the end of 2024.

According to the strategist, tokenized Treasury offerings from BlackRock and Securitize will attract more capital to the tokenized US debt instrument market.

The analyst noted that BlackRock’s Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) is already the world’s largest tokenized Treasury investment fund.