Pegged USDC, PUSDC as a Stable Asset on Cosmos Hub

[atomregistry]

Hi Cosmonauts!

It’s arrived. I’ve created a new class of stable asset that is layered directly onto the Cosmos Hub.

This asset, by design, is fully backed 1:1 with USDC, and can never be depegged from USDC. While that may sound impossible, it is also by design both trustless and transparent.

I actually just started out to bring a legit stable asset to Cosmos Hub and quickly realized that the Cosmos tech stack permitted much more than traditional stable assets like USDC, USDT, DAI which are designed primarily for payments and trading.

I built PUSDC as a redeemable NFT vault receipt, a hybrid asset that combines the stability of USDC with the ownership, composability, and programmability of NFTs.

This gives it unique properties that traditional stables simply cannot match:

True individual ownership (each NFT is unique and ownable)

Built-in escrow capability without needing extra contracts

Native collateral for lending and DeFi Rich metadata and programmability

Transparent, verifiable 1:1 backing on-chain

Case Uses & Utilities of PUSDC

Here’s just a partial list of real-world applications:

1. Real Estate & Physical Asset Purchases
Use batches of PUSDC NFTs as clean, divisible payment or collateral for buying houses, land, commercial property, vehicles, or equipment. The NFTs serve as on-chain receipts during escrow and closing.

2. Digital Gift Cards & Gifting
Send a PUSDC NFT as a digital gift card. The recipient can redeem it for USDC or spend it wherever PUSDC is accepted. Perfect for birthdays, holidays, rewards, or customer incentives.

3. Memberships & Access Passes
Projects can issue or accept PUSDC NFTs as staked memberships. Hold the NFT to unlock premium features, private communities, events, content, or services.

4. Everyday Commerce & Payments
Merchants can accept PUSDC NFTs for any product or service — software, physical goods, event tickets, consulting, education, travel, etc. The seller simply redeems the NFTs for USDC.

5. Self-Custodied Escrow
Transfer PUSDC NFTs to act as escrow in freelance work, private sales, partnerships, or large deals. No third-party needed — the NFT itself represents the locked value.

6. Lending & Borrowing
PUSDC NFTs are high-quality collateral for loans. Lenders can instantly verify the 1:1 USDC backing on-chain, enabling better loan terms.

7. Investment Syndicates & Group Funding
Groups can pool USDC into PUSDC NFTs to fund startups, content creators, films, music projects, or joint ventures. The NFTs represent proportional ownership.

8. Cross-Border Payments & Remittances
Fast, stable-value transfers. Recipients can redeem the NFTs for local currency or hold them as a stable store of value.

9. Subscriptions & Recurring Payments
Pay for streaming services, SaaS tools, newsletters, gym memberships, or any recurring service using PUSDC NFTs.

10. Rewards, Loyalty & Tipping
Businesses can issue PUSDC NFTs as loyalty rewards or use them for tipping and micro-payments.

11. Advanced Financial Products
Pools of PUSDC NFTs can back structured products, options, yield strategies, insurance pools, or collateralized debt instruments.

12. Transparent Treasury Management
DAOs, funds, and individuals can hold PUSDC NFTs as a verifiable, redeemable stable reserve. Every unit’s backing is publicly auditable on-chain.

If an item of any kind is for sale on or offline in US Dollars, Pegged USDC can legitimately be used for purchasing it.

In keeping with how I build, all gas fees are in ATOM.

Everyone in the Cosmos community now has build and profit options not available to them here yesterday. Now anyone can verify this reality onsite @ https://pusdc.atomregistry.com/ for themselves as desired. The page is in beta and will remain up into production. There are several upgrades I’m working on that are on a staging page.

I’m sure that there are a bunch of questions needing answered and I’m available. I am on X alot so if someone has a private ask, hit me up there! I’m https://x.com/atomregistry there.

Thanks!

[TRAVE]

Congratulations on executing and shipping this so fast. As I mentioned in the previous thread, taking action is what separates the winners from the rest.

I really like the architectural decision to have all gas fees paid in ATOM. That is exactly the kind of direct value accrual and utility the Cosmos Hub desperately needs.

However, diving into the nuances, structuring a stable asset as an NFT vault receipt is a highly unconventional approach. If our ultimate goal is to attract deep institutional liquidity and Wall Street-level integration, I have two critical questions regarding the foundation:

1. Divisibility and Friction: NFTs are inherently unique. If I hold a PUSDC NFT backed by 100 USDC, how do we handle precise micro-transactions (e.g., paying exactly $14.32)? Does this structure introduce UX friction compared to traditional fungible tokens? 2. Security and Custody: You mention it is trustless and 1:1 backed. Where exactly is the underlying USDC held (smart contract, multi-sig, etc.), and has this architecture undergone rigorous, professional security audits? Institutional capital simply won’t touch beta contracts or un-audited vaults.

I saw you shared your X profile to discuss ideas, and my intention here is not just to throw obstacles in your way. I am going to give these hurdles some serious thought to see if I can come up with some constructive ideas to address my own doubts. Thank you again for stepping up and building—let’s figure this out together!

[atomregistry]

Hi there!

Questions aren’t obstacles, they are what makes a good project great.

I’ve already upgraded to multi demoninations, though the real answer is that for a precise payment, it would mean redeeming the nft to make that tx. The vault is a smart contract audited by my Rust Engine at rustaudit.com which, for complete transparency, is my build also.

To be fair, I never saw this as a Wall Street or institutional backed build so I never built it with that in mind. It will only succeed through Cosmo community use. The actual process is straightforward enough and a quick review will probably answer most of your other questions and maybe even create a few more.

As a side note, I’m adding full IBC support so PUSDC can ship network wide.

The updated site is https://usd.atomregistry.com.

It really wasn’t a fast shipment. If I am talking about a build, it’s already been in the pipeline for months and going into beta testing. I never talk about the “gonna do’s” which is generally a promise and a prayer, and I am not a fan of the trust me bro vibe.

I hope I fully answered your questions and if you have more, ask away. A project has to be defensible without being defensive, and truth be told, I enjoy the engagement.

Thanks!

[TRAVE]

First of all, I know this is your idea, your project, your hard work, and your coin. If you’ll allow me to keep discussing it with you, I would like to say that…

Thank you for the transparent and detailed response. It’s a breath of fresh air to talk with someone who values the “build first, talk later” philosophy and who embraces constructive stress tests.

A few thoughts on your points:

1. IBC Integration: This is massive. Connecting PUSDC across the entire ecosystem is exactly where the network effects for the Cosmos Hub will truly kick in. This completely changes the game.

2. Structural Solidity (Learning from Terra/LUNA): I want to highlight how crucial your 1:1 backing model is. We all remember the Terra/LUNA catastrophe, which collapsed because it relied on an algorithmic, fictitious value to maintain its peg. By anchoring PUSDC directly to real, locked USDC, you’ve bypassed that critical flaw entirely. You’ve created real, tangible value instead of algorithmic promises. This structural soundness is exactly what gives a project longevity.

3. Audience & Institutional Influx: I respect that you built this for the community rather than for Wall Street. It’s a noble approach. However, history shows us that as we grow a brand or an entity, we inevitably attract larger players and heavier capital. Look at Bitcoin: who it was built for, and who is dominating it now. If something works and generates power (money), the big institutions will enter, whether we want to keep it localized or not. We must be prepared for that reality.

4. Security & The Target on Our Backs: Because success attracts capital, it also attracts hackers. We just saw a practical example of our vulnerabilities with governance proposals #1030 and #1031 (the latter being an outright scam attempt). I understand that your Rust Engine works, but as TVL grows, the platform becomes a bigger target. To stay at the vanguard and protect both the community and future institutional clients, external third-party audits will be absolutely essential to build unshakeable trust and security. Just something to consider as this scales!

5. Friction: Having to redeem the NFT for exact micro-payments makes sense mechanically, even if it adds a step. It seems like a fair trade-off for the unique escrow properties you’ve designed.

I will be reviewing the updated site. Keep up the fantastic work; this is exactly the kind of grassroots innovation and honest dialogue we need. Let’s keep building.

[atomregistry]

Hi Again!

By design, depeg is impossible. PUSDC derives its value 1:1 from the Circle asset and in any scenario it remains fixed at 1:1. If I sell one for a quarter. it’s still going to redeem 1:1 for Circle backed USDC.

Now about Rust Audit. I’ve ran smart contracts with significant escrow holdings and the results were so concerning that I realized that I could never allow access to it. For testing, I will accept contract files from official projects and submit the results. I’ll admit to some bias, though and objectively, I agree that this build absolutely needs an independent audit and critical review. It’s just a fact that builders can be blinded by bias when it comes to their own work.

I’m not suggesting that this is the finished product because it needs this kind of critique and scrutiny for it to be production grade. For institutional, or any level of participation, and I love this part, a Cosmos Hub account is required and all gas fee’s are in ATOM. No one gets to just come in and take without contributing to the Hub. Big bucks has to put it on the table, too or they just don’t get to eat.

In nearly all of my frontend work, I use html and vanilla js without a node server or db which is ultra secure since it leaves a minimal attack surface. I also use a protowriter of my own design for all tx signatures so threats from compromised CDN’s simply don’t exist. For clarity, the only way for an account tx to occur, is a user must sign it themselves with their own wallet.

I sincerely appreciate your time and effort into investigating the feasibility and need for security with PUSDC. I’ve heard it said that it takes a village but in this case, it will take a Hub.

Thanks!

[TRAVE]

@atomregistry

Now about Rust Audit. I’ve ran smart co

Thank you for understanding my point of view. It is clear to me that you have either stumbled over or watched others stumble over similar problems in the past, which gives you the right perspective on the absolute need for external audits.

You are also absolutely right about the institutional side of things. If big capital wants a seat at the table, they have to pay the toll in ATOM for gas. I completely agree with you; that is the exact economic model we need for the Hub.

Regarding your frontend security approach (using vanilla JS and minimizing the attack surface), that is a very good move. It is taking things one step further to protect the protocol from every angle.

I will be eagerly watching the progress, and I hope to see this brought to a governance vote soon. As it looks right now, I will be defending the project. Thank you for taking my suggestions so willingly and for sharing your improvements and how you overcome these eventualities. Let’s keep building. Until next time!