Chainfeeds Guide:
On April 16, the on-chain Delta neutral yield-bearing stablecoin (YBS) project Resolv completed a $10 million seed round led by Maven11, which is its first public financing since its establishment in 2023. Compared to Ethena's blazing momentum, Resolv is relatively low-key, but its innovations are no less impressive than its peers. In summary, it can be divided into: a more unique yield model, more on-chain yield sources, and more complex tokenomics.
Article Source:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/P0AFtIbyY-Vm3GOW52LxWA
Article Author:
Zuo Ye
Perspective:
Zuo Ye: This round of financing was led by Maven11, headquartered in the Netherlands, with most participating funds being US-based institutions like Robot Ventures. However, it is worth noting that Resolv's three co-founders, Ivan Kozlov, Fedor Chmilevfa, and Tim Shekikhachev, all have technical backgrounds educated in Russia. From the project's disclosure rhythm, there is a possibility that financing was completed earlier but delayed in announcement, perhaps to avoid sensitive identity risks in the current international situation. It can be compared to Ethena's financing path, which relies on exchange VC endorsement. As a similar YBS (Yield-Bearing Stablecoin) project, Resolv at least needs a fund to address systemic risks or black swan events. From the project architecture, Resolv did not simply copy Ethena's dual-token structure, but designed a more complex three-token mechanism: stablecoin USR, RLP with insurance pool function and LP Token nature, and governance token RESOLV. Among them, USR is a dollar-pegged stablecoin that users can mint 1:1 with USDC/USDT/ETH; RLP is used to cover potential losses in CEX hedging and serves as a high-yield risk token with a theoretical annual yield of 20% to 30%; the governance token $RESOLV does not bear the exchange benefit binding role of Ethena's ENA, but is more focused on traditional DAO governance. This design approach provides greater flexibility for subsequent risk layering and yield structure while maintaining protocol diversity and on-chain deployment friendliness. Compared to Ethena's more compromising architecture (completely dependent on CEX perpetual hedging), Resolv clearly chose a more proactive on-chain solution. Its assets are mainly distributed across on-chain protocols and DEXs like Hyperliquid, trying to avoid potential asset misappropriation or centralization risks in traditional CEX hedging. However, this also brings certain practical issues, such as Hyperliquid's current contract liquidity being far less than top exchanges like Binance. Resolv's strategy is to transfer this hedging risk to RLP, guiding users to take on higher risk exposure through high yields. Currently, Resolv's TVL is significantly lower than Ethena's, with RLP TVL at only $63 million, about 20% of USR. Despite its theoretically higher yield, actual returns are constrained by market volatility. Especially with ETH's recent poor performance, RLP yields have even turned negative. Since its hedging logic is set for ETH long positions paying short fees, this mechanism is difficult to maintain in a unilateral downward market. In other words, RLP is essentially a leveraged risk-yield token whose value comes not only from the hedging pool but also depends on user trust and expectations of the system's yield model. Therefore, Resolv's architecture essentially aims to build a more DeFi-native YBS system by on-chain deployment and high-yield token design without completely abandoning CEX. However, whether it can find a balance between liquidity, security, and yield stability remains to be verified. The future of the YBS (Yield-Bearing Stablecoin) ecosystem remains uncertain. While Ethena fired the first shot, its success does not mean the end of the entire track. As a latecomer, Resolv attempts to enter the market with a more complex product structure and a more proactive on-chain stance. However, the reality is that both in TVL and token circulation, Resolv currently lags far behind Ethena, which means its challenges come not only from whether its design logic is sound but also from accumulating trust from capital and user sides. Unlike the DeFi Summer era when a product prototype could attract massive funds, today's YBS projects must be extreme in dimensions like APY, transparency, institutional endorsement, and extreme market protection. In the current background of falling interest rates, as long as a YBS project's APY can exceed the market's conventional stablecoin yields (such as Ethena's sUSDe at around 5% or below), it may attract "adventurers" and ignite its flywheel. But this also means that project parties need to maintain system stability and yield attractiveness through continuous tokenomics optimization, community guidance, and incentivizing high-risk appetite users. Resolv's RLP is called an insurance-type LP Token, but it has not yet undergone extreme market testing. It is more of a hybrid model closer to Berachain + Hyperliquid, aiming to maximize on-chain yields while reducing dependence on CEX. Whether it can find a balance between stability and growth in this complex structure will determine its survival space in the YBS ecosystem.
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