M^0 Protocol Unveils White Paper for Decentralized, Fungible Stablecoins Backed by US Treasury Bills

According to CoinDesk, M^0, a protocol that allows global institutions to mint fungible T-bills backed stablecoins, has unveiled its white paper, website, and other details about the protocol. The team, which includes heavy-hitting stablecoin pioneers from MakerDAO and Circle, emerged from stealth last year with a muscular $22.5 million seed round led by Pantera Capital. The M^0 protocol aims to recreate the $5 trillion-$20 trillion offshore dollar market for the digital age. M^0 Labs CEO Luca Prosperi believes that a centralized party should not mint stablecoins and should not continue to fractionalize liquidity. M^0 takes some of the original ideas of MakerDAO, where Prosperi was a community leader, but makes that vision more institutional. The protocol collects certain fees that are then distributed on-chain to various actors for their participation, but most of the upside is staying with the actors that actually interact with it. M^0 is targeting the $5 trillion-$20 trillion offshore dollar market. M^0 Labs Chief Strategy Officer Joao Reginatto, the former VP of stablecoins at Circle, said that it’s “pretty ridiculous” that stablecoins are not interoperable. The M^0 protocol will go live in Q2 2024. The expected initial user base includes crypto-friendly institutions, funds invested in decentralized finance (DeFi), and market makers. The future, however, is for protocols to become the back-end of financial technology companies, according to Prosperi.