Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Last week, a governance proposal outlining the MetaMask stablecoin mUSD was deleted shortly after publication, sparking market speculation about mUSD's development. Currently, the launch of this stablecoin has been confirmed.

The crypto wallet MetaMask, developed by Consensys, announced on August 21 that it will launch the native dollar stablecoin MetaMask USD ($mUSD), marking the first time a self-custody wallet has launched a self-issued stablecoin. mUSD is expected to be released later this year, first launching on Ethereum and Linea.

Built on Bridge and M0, it will connect with Mastercard by the end of the year.

mUSD is built by Bridge, a stablecoin issuance company under Stripe, and is supported by M0's decentralized infrastructure.

Bridge is a stablecoin orchestration and issuance platform under Stripe, providing compliant licensing, monitoring, and rigorous reserve management for custom-issued stablecoins. The underlying M0 protocol mints $mUSD, and the platform offers a decentralized and scalable stablecoin infrastructure designed for interoperability, composability, and transparency.

According to MetaMask, mUSD will be fully backed 1:1 by "high-quality, highly liquid dollar-equivalent assets," including U.S. cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bills, and will feature real-time transparency and cross-chain composability. mUSD is planned to launch later this year on Ethereum and Consensys's Linea network, with deep integration into Linea's DeFi stack to gradually cover lending markets, DEXs, and custodial platforms, thus promoting liquidity and reducing user onboarding friction.

mUSD will primarily be used in two ways:

  • Available in the wallet at launch: for seamless deposit, exchange, transfer, and cross-chain bridging.

  • Expected to be available in real life by the end of the year: allowing users to use mUSD at millions of merchants accepting Mastercard through the MetaMask card.

Regarding whether to offer mUSD deposit rewards to customers, MetaMask's Vice President of Product Strategy Ajay Mittal emphasized: "Currently, mUSD will not directly provide returns to users. However, mUSD may play a role in future MetaMask incentive programs."

The specific issuance date or planned issuance scale has not been disclosed, but more technical details and user guides will be released in the coming weeks.

The development cycle has been shortened to a few weeks, and stablecoins are entering a rapid expansion period.

The launch of mUSD coincides with stablecoin monthly on-chain trading volume surpassing nearly $1 trillion, and it is also happening as the GENIUS Act is passed in the U.S.

Previously, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller delivered a speech supporting cryptocurrencies, emphasizing the role of stablecoins and pointing out their potential to maintain and expand the dollar's international status. Meanwhile, Wyoming officially launched the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), becoming the first state in the U.S. to issue its own stablecoin.

With the booming digital dollar market and increased regulatory transparency, the concept of application-based stablecoins is also gaining more attention. Payment applications, crypto wallets, or DeFi protocols can also launch their own stablecoins while outsourcing compliance, reserves, and infrastructure to providers.

For example, Paxos issued PayPal's PYUSD token, while BitGo supports the USD1 of the DeFi protocol World Liberty Financial associated with Trump. Earlier this month, American fintech company Slash partnered with Bridge to launch its own stablecoin.

MetaMask's stablecoin is the first case of cooperation between M0 and Bridge, allowing MetaMask to provide its users with built-in digital dollars without managing complex issuance, compliance, and technical processes.

Zach Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Bridge, stated that they have shortened the development time for customized stablecoin issuance from "over a year of complex integration" to "a few weeks." This means applications like Metamask can "achieve returns faster and more efficiently than ever before."

Through this collaboration, M0 and Bridge are seeking to replicate the development results of MetaMask tokens to more issuers.