Uphold And Cred Team Up On Interest-Accruing Stablecoin

The sizzling stablecoin market took another leap forward Monday with the announcement of a forthcoming U.S. dollar-pegged coin that will actually pay interest to its holders.

The stablecoin, known as the Universal Dollar, is the product of a partnership known as the Universal Protocol Alliance between Uphold, the global digital money platform, decentralized lending platform Cred, Brave and Blockchain at Berkeley.

Like other stablecoins on the market, the Universal Dollar will be fully-collateralized by dollars held in FDIC-insured banks. However, its holders will be able to opt into a program called Uphold Earn that offers bank-like services to consumers, including the ability to earn interest as high as five percent.

Set to rollout in mid-November, the coin is the latest in a wave of new dollar-collateralized stablecoin issuances, such as the Gemini Dollar and Paxos Standard - which were both greenlighted by the New York Department of Financial Services in September.

“It’s really aimed at beyond the 24 million users of crypto or those relying on Tether for safe harbor,” Uphold CEO J.P. Thieriot told Forbes. “It’s really more aimed at crypto attempting to deliver the goods to the mass market.”