Origins

Usual began with a small group of contributors and a clear idea: the value created by a stablecoin should belong to the people who use it.

In much of DeFi, a stablecoin issuer functions like a bank. Control over flows, revenues, and decisions sits at the center. Economic upside is captured upstream, while users remain downstream. A system cannot meaningfully claim decentralization if this imbalance remains intact.

Before the token

Before launch, the work was primarily infrastructural. A small group focused on building the foundations of the protocol, without a clear view of how or when the system might generate revenue. A financial system is not shipped like a consumer product. It must be secured, tested, audited, and operated with full responsibility from the first day.

During this phase, the project began to attract early supporters, including investors, angels, and ecosystem participants. Their involvement was practical. They provided the capital, expertise, and execution capacity needed to move from an initial design to a deployed protocol.

Funding the protocol

To finance development ahead of launch, investors received USUAL STAR, a token distinct from USUAL, while remaining linked to it.

Its role was narrow. It allowed early funding to be linked to the protocol’s issuance mechanics without inflating USUAL itself, whose supply was primarily intended for the community. This preserved flexibility in how ownership and governance would ultimately consolidate once the system was live

The reasoning was straightforward. If token supply is tied to protocol performance, then the team and early supporters should remain directly exposed to how the system performs over time. Alignment was designed to follow real value creation, rather than promises made before the protocol existed.

The TGE

The TGE marked a clear transition. By that point, the protocol was live, audited, and functioning. Governance could exist in practice, not just in theory.

From then on, Usual was no longer defined by the people who built it early or by those who funded its development. It became a shared asset, held and governed by USUAL token holders through the DAO.

Before the token existed, the role of the Labs was simple: build the promised infrastructure and deliver a working protocol. Once the DAO formed, authority began to move. Not abruptly, but concretely, and in a way that could be observed.

In the same spirit, neither the founding team nor early investors retained majority control at launch. The majority of the supply was distributed to the community. This created real market effects, including farming-related sell pressure, but the operational objective was achieved. The protocol was bootstrapped, and ownership was broadly distributed.

After launch

The period following the TGE surfaced several realities. Farming introduced second-order effects. Transparency and execution speed did not always align cleanly. Crypto markets continued to favor simple narratives over revenue-based reasoning.

One principle remained unchanged. If a token carries economic rights, holders deserve clarity on how value flows to it. In line with that principle, Usual activated revenue sharing one month after the TGE, distributing protocol revenues.

As usage grew, the separation between governance and execution also became clearer. The DAO existed to govern and own the system. The Labs existed to build it.

2026: what follows, and the principles that shape it

As Usual moves into its next phase, the focus shifts from bootstrapping to consolidation. The work underway is not about adding surface complexity, but about making the system cleaner, more coherent, and easier to reason about as it scales.

Over the past months, changes have been built quietly across infrastructure, ownership, and governance. To advance this goal of decentralization, Usual will continue to clarify the distribution of responsibilities, strengthen decentralization, and establish USUAL as the single vector for value and governance.

Several proposals will be submitted in this regard to establish and ratify the following principles in the coming weeks.

• The Labs exists to build on behalf of the DAO. Its mandate is defined by a validated roadmap, funded by the DAO, and bounded by clear expectations. What the DAO pays to build belongs to the DAO. Infrastructure and code developed with collective resources are assets of the system itself. In practice, part of what has already been built will be transferred into DAO ownership in early 2026.

• Compensation follows the same discipline. The Labs is paid for work delivered, explicitly and proportionately. It does not sit upstream of protocol revenues by default. Any ongoing compensation reflects services rendered, not permanent claims on the system.

• Governance also enters a more mature phase. Early structures were designed to protect the system while distribution was still forming. As issuance progresses and ownership consolidates, governance becomes simpler. Authority increasingly rests with USUAL alone. In that context, USUAL STAR moves toward its intended conclusion, with its associated rights sunsetting at maturity.

What follows is not a redesign, but a tightening. Fewer moving parts. Clearer ownership. More direct alignment between usage, governance, and value.

What USUAL represents

USUAL is not a wrapper layered on top of the protocol. It is the vehicle through which economic and governance rights are exercised across the Usual ecosystem.

As Usual enters a more mature phase, the objective remains unchanged: to build a financial system that, in practice, belongs to the people who use it and sustain it.

This includes the transfer of assets and intellectual property developed under the Labs into the DAO, clearer separation between what the DAO owns and what the Labs executes, and a structure where value created by the protocol is more directly legible to those who hold and govern it.