--- title: "stcUSD (Cap) — Yield Mechanism, Risk, and Protection Stack" asset: stcUSD issuer: Cap app category: Yield-bearing stablecoin source: "WYCF Episode 02" presenter: "Benjamin Peillard, CEO of Cap" data_partner: Stablewatch last_updated: 2026-07-11 url: https://wycf.show/episodes/stcusd-cap summary: > stcUSD is the yield-bearing version of Cap's cUSD stablecoin. Its yield comes from real-economy lending (manufacturing, trade finance, inventory, film, and trading firms), intermediated by underwriters who post their own collateral as first-loss protection. This document traces where the yield comes from, who bears the risk, and what happens when collateral breaks. key_metrics: stcusd_tvl_usd: 84000000 protocol_tvl_usd: 254000000 protocol_tvl_peak_usd: 484000000 apy_current_pct: 4.54 apy_7d_avg_pct: 4.66 apy_30d_avg_pct: 5.12 yield_paid_all_time_usd: 6012543 yield_paid_30d_usd: 278925 cusd_staked_as_stcusd: "over 50%" data_as_of: 2026-07-11 data_source: Stablewatch --- # stcUSD (Cap): Where the Yield Comes From > WYCF Episode 02 context file, built to be read by an LLM. Drop it into a chat > and ask anything about how stcUSD generates yield, who underwrites the risk, > and what happens when collateral breaks. Speaker: Benjamin Peillard, CEO of > Cap. Protocol: stcUSD · Cap. Series: *Where Yield Comes From*, Season One. --- ## The question Every liquidity provider asks the same thing: where does the yield actually come from? For stcUSD the answer starts with a critique: most yield in crypto is one trade wearing different costumes. This file traces where Cap goes instead, who stands between the depositor and the risk, and why a compromised collateral is not the same thing as a loss. ## The numbers (live, verified by Stablewatch) Live figures for the stcUSD asset, as independently tracked on the episode's dashboard (as of 11 July 2026): - **stcUSD TVL: ~$84M** — value locked in staked cUSD - **stcUSD yield APY: ~5.1%** (30-day average, matching the Stablewatch dashboard) — the current rate sits near 4–4.5% and moves daily - **Cumulative yield paid to holders: ~$6.0M** all-time (~$279K in the last 30 days) - More than half of all cUSD is staked as stcUSD - Active borrower categories: manufacturing, trade finance, inventory financing, film financing, and lending to trading firms These figures update live on the Stablewatch dashboard on the episode page. Protocol-wide TVL for Cap is ~$254M (DefiLlama, July 2026); the ~$84M above is the stcUSD asset itself, as tracked by Stablewatch. Cap's TVL peaked near $484M in January 2026. ## Where the yield comes from The episode opens with where crypto yield usually comes from: Bitcoin markets. That takes three shapes, and all three are the same exposure: | Traditional crypto yield | What it really is | | --- | --- | | Trading strategies | Basis trading, long/short funding spreads | | BTC-backed lending | Sky, Compound, Aave, FalconX and similar | | Token emissions | Protocol tokens farmed and sold for added yield | All three are tied to Bitcoin's price. When BTC is up, basis trades pay, lending demand is high, and emission tokens are worth selling. When BTC is down, trading strategies stop paying, BTC-backed lending yields less than T-bills, and there are no emissions to farm. The yield was never diversified; it was one bet. Cap's design imports yield from the productive economy instead. Loans to businesses that produce value and borrow to operate: - **Manufacturing** — plants borrowing against production - **Film financing** — productions borrowing against releases - **Trade finance** — global commerce funding its movement - **Inventory financing** — firms borrowing against stock - **Lending to trading firms** — including high-frequency desks Every borrower signs a legal agreement to repay. The yield stcUSD pays is the interest these real-economy borrowers pay for capital, routed onchain. The claim that matters: this yield does not switch off in a bear market, because the real economy keeps operating when Bitcoin doesn't. ## Who bears the risk Cap introduces a third actor between the depositor and the borrower: the **underwriter**. - **Depositors** bring dollars and want yield. - **Borrowers** (the manufacturing plant, the trade-finance firm) take the dollars under a legal repayment agreement. - **Underwriters** decide which borrowers get funded, and post their own assets as guarantee for that decision. Underwriters are players holding unproductive assets: ETH restakers, BTC miners, credit funds. Their assets earn little on their own (there is no scalable credit market on Bitcoin the way there is on the dollar), so they come to Cap, allocate depositor capital to borrowers, and stake their own collateral behind the call. If an underwriter's borrower fails, the underwriter's collateral is taken and used to repay depositors. The underwriter earns yield precisely for carrying that first-loss position. In Cap's design, the depositor is never the first loss: the underwriter is. ## What happens if the collateral breaks The episode addresses the scenario directly, using a live example: the rsETH incident, where compromised collateral produced hundreds of millions in DeFi losses. The key structural point: **underwriter collateral failing and borrowers defaulting are independent events.** If the asset an underwriter posted (rsETH, BTC, gold, yen) goes to zero, the guarantee is gone, but the borrower's legal obligation to repay is untouched. The manufacturing plant still owes and still pays. A collateral failure alone does not create bad debt; it removes one layer of protection while the underlying loans keep performing. Bad debt requires both failures at once: the borrower defaults AND the underwriter's guarantee can't cover it. That separation between the two events is the core of Cap's principal-protection argument. ## Why allocators should trust it (per the episode) 1. **It's automated.** The system doesn't require trusting the team; the mechanism enforces itself. 2. **Principal protection.** Every loan is covered by onchain collateral that can be liquidated if the borrower doesn't repay. 3. **The yield is real and scalable.** The source is the productive economy, not token emissions or trading. It scales to billions because global manufacturing, trade and commerce are the counterparty, and it pays in bear markets because the real economy keeps moving. ## How Cap structures it, in one pass Depositors' dollars → allocated by underwriters (who post their own assets as insurance) → lent to real-economy borrowers under legal agreements → interest flows back as stcUSD yield → underwriter collateral absorbs first loss if their allocation call was wrong. ## Questions worth asking your LLM - If an underwriter's collateral goes to zero the same week their borrower defaults, what exactly protects the depositor, and in what order is capital recovered? - Cap replaces Bitcoin-price correlation with real-economy exposure. What new correlations does the depositor inherit: trade cycles, manufacturing credit conditions, film-industry risk? - Why would a BTC miner or ETH restaker be good at underwriting a manufacturing loan? What does the answer imply about how underwriting quality is selected and priced at Cap? --- *Source: WYCF Episode 02, "stcUSD," presented by Benjamin Peillard (Cap). Data verified by Stablewatch. Full episode: https://wycf.show/episodes/stcusd-cap* *WYCF is new media for onchain yield. One yield product per episode, explained end to end. An original production by Agustín do Rego.*