Toncoin

<h2 id="header-0">How a Telegram Chat Sparked a Movement</h2><p>In August 2021, a group of stablecoin enthusiasts created a Telegram chat to discuss launching a stablecoin. After lengthy discussions and debates, the decision was made to create a yield-bearing stablecoin. The idea was appealing, especially at a time when yield-bearing stablecoins were rare. The chat raised $300,000 in a capped sale to bring this idea to life, forming what became the StableUnit DAO. With limited resources, the core team was driven to build the project, motivated by personal challenges like being debanked or facing high inflation in their home countries. We all believed in StableUnit’s potential. Alex the CEO, Dmitry the CTO, and the entire team faced these challenges, so we were building for ourselves before building for the world.</p><h2 id="header-1"><strong>Navigating the UST Collapse: The Birth of a Stronger StableUnit</strong></h2><p>Our initial objective was to build a stablecoin with a structure similar to Frax V1, but we soon recognized its limitations, especially as UST and other algorithmic stablecoins spiraled into collapse. This was a challenging period for both the industry and our team. Trust in decentralized stablecoins plummeted, regardless of their mechanism design, and no one wanted to fund StableUnit DAO in its mission to create resilient decentralized stablecoins. But we persevered, exploring alternative mechanism designs. Believing strongly in DAOs, we were inspired by projects like Inverse Finance to start building DAO contracts and prepare infrastructure for functional DAO governance. We also completed the proof-of-concept for GamifyDAO, an early model for the DAO Passport. We hoped that early decentralization of governance would drive decentralized contributions, but this proved untrue as the DAO hype faded. With our funding slowly depleting, we couldn’t accept shutting down the project—not before creating the next generation of stablecoins.</p><h2 id="header-2">Onchain yields for CDPs, a new age</h2><p>This determination pushed us to pivot to a CDP stablecoin, SUM (StableUnit Money), with more solvency guarantees, which the core team began developing right away. Our new goal was to create a CDP stablecoin inspired by MakerDAO but with support for additional collateral types and a yield-staking module similar to the DSR. While exploring yield-bearing asset models, we saw that embedding yield capabilities directly into the ERC20 token (without the downsides of rebasing) would be a unique innovation. We also wanted the protocol to be resilient, with a robust liquidation mechanism ensuring system solvency.</p><h2 id="header-3">Security first, a bottom-up review</h2><p>We started by developing all features from scratch, using the battle-tested MakerDAO model as a foundation. Partnering with Oxorio (who had audited protocols like Aave), we developed our first liquidation module. In late 2022, as we neared code completion, we decided to reassess everything from a security standpoint. The year 2022 witnessed major exploits, including the $624 million Ronin Network hack, Beanstalk’s $181 million hack, and Mango Markets’ $115 million hack. These security concerns led us to prioritize robust protective measures. The collapse of FTX further lowered industry morale to an all-time low. Despite this, we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw in the towel. As funds dwindled, we continued to aavate, introducing features like a circuit breaker (to limit potential losses from hacks to a small portion of the TVL) and enhancing our yield distribution technology, refining all modules. In 2023, we implemented a second version of our liquidation module, simplifying the liquidation architecture. We also streamlined the lending framework, enhanced liquidation bots, improved oracle integration, and integrated exchange modules (working with the liquidation module to exchange collateral for whitelisted stablecoins during liquidations) with platforms like 1inch and ParaSwap. We began developing the LP module to support LP tokens on StableUnit. Yet, interest for crypto collateralized stablecoins was still at low, people still remembered Luna. But we still fought with our limited resources.</p><h2 id="header-4">The huddle facing financial hurdles</h2><p>Believing StableUnit to be nearing launch readiness, we focused on the DAO Passport. The  DAO believed in our vision and wanted everyone to participate in the future of money. We designed the DAO Passport, a free mint cross-chain NFT for governance, to attract individuals from various communities into StableUnit DAO governance. The StableUnit DAO Passport was shared across multiple ecosystems (including BSC, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Scroll).</p><p>We believed we were ready to launch but underestimated audit costs, particularly for a stablecoin project. The team shrank from 9 to 3 members during development, and we had to secure additional funding in a market where stablecoins weren’t popular. The memory of Luna’s collapse still lingered, and we were often asked how a CDP stablecoin differed from UST. Despite these challenges, we secured further funding to continue development and prepare for launch. This led us to step back and ask, how can we build the best version of StableUnit?</p><h2 id="header-5">An enhanced MakerDAO</h2><p>One realization was that we weren’t entirely confident in our lending module. After interviewing potential users, we understood that adapting a well-established codebase wouldn’t reflect poorly on us. Early in 2024, we decided to adapt MakerDAO’s codebase specifically for the lending module, believing that StableUnit’s liquidation and yield distribution technology still offered valuable improvements. This year, we worked on completing the staking modules, enabling real yield for SuDAO stakers through liquidations while protecting the system’s solvency.</p><h2 id="header-6">Preparing LPDFi for the DeFi renaissance</h2><p>We wanted productive assets in the stablecoin&#39;s collateral, including LP tokens from yield optimizers and other DeFi protocols (such as Aura Finance, Pendle, Convex, and Tokemak). With the rise of LSTs and LRTs, we saw a natural fit for these assets as collateral in the protocol. This is the golden age for yield-bearing assets, leveraged LPs, and the recent success of Ethena and Fluid DEX confirmed our approach.</p><p>Our vision is for StableUnit to become the decentralized stablecoin that defines the future of savings, a stablecoin where yield is generated from multiple on-chain revenue sources, transparently auditable in real-time by anyone.</p><h2 id="header-7">The future is built alongside the users</h2><p>Our goals are centered on transparency, security, and diversified yields to make DeFi accessible to the masses. First, though, we want to bring StableUnit to you.</p><p>We’ve now finalized development, are moving forward with audits, and are preparing to launch and grow. We aim to go from 0 to 0.1 and then, together, take it to 1.</p>

StableUnit’s Beginnings After The End

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