TrustToken is a blockchain technology company founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California, USA. Now renamed Archblock, the company provides decentralized financial services by issuing stablecoins backed by real assets such as TrueCurrencies (TUSD) and has developed TrueFi (TRU), a decentralized lending platform for organizations.
What is Archblock (TrustToken)?
Archblock is a company that provides financial services to institutions, fund managers, and individuals around the world. Archblock itself acts as a bridge between CeFi entities and DeFi, making lending more transparent, efficient, and accessible.
Archblock was founded in 2017 under the name "TrustToken" when TrueCurrencies (TUSD) was successfully launched. In September 2022, TrustToken decided to focus on the development of DeFi products for enterprises. "Archblock" is under the leadership of new CEO Ryan Christensen.
Since its inception, TrustToken has launched two major products:
TrueFX: Developing TrueCurrencies, a stablecoin pegged to the fiat currencies of five countries, including TrueUSD, TrueGBP, TrueAUD, TrueCAD, and TrueHKD. Among them, TrueUSD (TUSD) has become one of the five stablecoins with a market value of more than $1 billion, becoming the most successful stablecoin.
TrueFi: The DeFi protocol pioneered the institutional unsecured lending model. Currently, it has provided more than $2 billion in loans to the market during its operation. With the future of TrueFi in the hands of the DAO, Archblock will no longer have much influence on TrueFi, but the TrueFi DAO will be solely responsible for the project's protocol development, token economics design, and how it operates.
Archblock Development Team
Archblock's operating team is composed of senior professionals with extensive experience in traditional financial markets. The CEO is Ryan, who has over 25 years of experience in the technology field and is also an entrepreneur. He is an MIT alumnus and has led and operated some of the world's top B2B companies. Ryan currently serves on the board of directors of Narrative I/O and has previously held leadership and management positions at AppNexus, AT&T, Zynga, and Yahoo.
Christensen has proven himself to be an integral part of TrustToken, overseeing Archblock’s product, marketing, communications, and playing a key role in protocol reforms.
Archblock COO and CFO Alex also held key positions at Google for over 7 years.
Currently, members are spread across many different countries, with 3 headquarters in Finland, Ireland and California.
Archblock's Products
Archblock’s two main products are TrueFX and TrueFi.
TrueFX (TrustToken)
TrustToken is a product of Archblock that allows users to create real-life asset-backed tokens on the blockchain. This group of tokens represents assets such as fiat currencies, commodities, and real estate (Real World Assets - RWA).
Among the tokens issued, TrueUSD (TUSD) is the most notable product, a stablecoin pegged and backed 1:1 with the US dollar.
To date, TUSD has been listed on platforms such as Binance and Huobi, and is available on popular blockchains such as Ethereum, TRON, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Fantom, and Polygon. TUSD's market capitalization has now exceeded $1.1 billion. In addition, TUSD has obtained a digital currency license and can be used as a medium of exchange in the Commonwealth of Dominica from October 7, 2022.
In addition to TUSD, TrustToken also has other stablecoins such as TrueGPB (Bristish Pounds), TrueCAD (Canadian Dollars), TAUD (Australian Dollars), TrueHKD (Hongkong Dollars), etc. However, the above stablecoins are no longer in circulation.
TUSD Reserve
With TUSD’s reserves, there will be two main entities involved in checking and storing the external reserves of USD. They include:
Auditor: TrueUSD is audited in real time by Armanino, one of the major auditing firms in the United States, to ensure a 1:1 ratio between USD reserves and TUSD tokens in circulation.
Partner banks: Partner banks act as custodians as they are responsible for holding real-life USD assets to ensure that the value of TUSD is preserved. Currently, TrueUSD works with five partner banks, including: Signature Bank, Silvergate Bank, Prime Trust, First Digital Trust, Capital Union, and BitGo.
First Digital Trust: 45% (525,863,892 USD)
Capital Union: 37.4% (437,512,191 USD)
Signature Bank: 12% (140,504,287 USD)
Prime Trust: 3.7% (43,727,686 USD)
Silvergate: 1.9% (21,016,088 USD)
BitGo: Negligible (16 USD)
Does Silvergate’s collapse threaten TUSD?
No. According to Silvergate's share in TUSD, the bank currently only stores 1.9% of the total USD of TUSD, which is still within Archblock's capabilities. The team also stated that they are very concerned about protecting users' assets and will continue to pay attention to market conditions and keep investors updated.
TrueFi
TrueFi is a lending and borrowing marketplace for institutional and professional investors in cryptocurrency. At TrueFi, fund managers in the financial markets can launch a wide range of products globally with the support of TrustLabs.
TrueFi is a bridge that helps CeFi organizations access DeFi through a large network of lenders and the platform's abundant liquidity.
Although TrueFi has handed over governance to the TrueFi DAO, Archblock remains a major contributor to TrueFi.
Reality in TrueFi
Portfolio Managers: These will be organizations from CeFi or DeFi that need to grow their portfolio on the blockchain. Portfolio managers have the power to design their own management strategies, fee structures and choose their own lenders/borrowers to ensure the best performance of the proposed strategy.
Borrowers: TrueFi’s borrowers must pass KYC/AML checks, assess their financial capabilities, and sign a contract. Borrowers will be large organizations that need loans to develop and operate their businesses, such as Wintermute, Alameda Research, delt.ai, nibbio...
Lenders: TrueFi lenders can choose to provide funds from the pool of funds created by the Portfolio Manager. Lenders are also protected by the TrueFi SAFU Fund and TRU stakeholders if the borrower defaults.
Archblock Highlights
Archblock’s products TrueFi and TrueFX are both trusted by the crypto market community and institutions.
TrueFi
In just 22 months since launching its lending protocol in November 2020, TrueFi has issued nearly $2 billion in total loans to large institutions, generating over $34 million in interest for lenders and nearly $3 million in interest for token holders and the TrueFi Treasury.
TrueFi has also successfully introduced institutions in CeFi to the investment and issuance portfolio based on real-world assets (RWAs). To this end, Archblock and Adapt3r successfully established a strategic partnership in December 2022 to help organizations and entities in traditional markets access DeFi, starting with commercial banks in the United States.
Adapt3r Digital LLC (“Adapt3r”) is an affiliate of MJL Capital, a management fund based in Washington, D.C. The Adapt3r team has deep expertise in fundraising and investing in U.S. community banks.
As Archblock has a large customer base in the cryptocurrency space and Adapt3r has deep expertise in digital asset investing and banking community products, this partnership will make DeFi easier for traditional banks.
TrueFX
With TrueFX, the stablecoin product TrueUSD (TUSD) has become the fifth largest stablecoin on the market since February 2023, even surpassing Frax Finance's FRAX stablecoin. TUSD has been acquired by Asian Techteryx Group for intellectual property rights, separating the stablecoin product from the lending platform into the current TrueFX (TrueUSD) and TrueFi (lending protocol).
High demand for BUSD amid legal scandal
The legitimate involvement of the Paxos stablecoin BUSD backed by Binance in the ecosystem has raised many concerns about its security. Since the incident, Binance has minted 130 million TUSD for use in just 1 week, raising suspicions that the second largest exchange in the market is shifting its attention to TUSD, causing the stablecoin supply to rebound by 39% in February alone.
Investors and Partners Archblock
Investor and Capital Calls
In the past, Archblock had two rounds of capitalization 3 years apart. In particular, Blocktower and A16Z were present in both rounds.
The total value of the two rounds of capital calls exceeded US$32 million, with more than 11 investors participating, including Alameda Research, Andreessen Horowitz, Blocktower Capital, Danhua Capital, Jump Capital, Zhenfund, Distribed Global, Slow Ventures and GGGV Capital.
partner
Archblock's companion will be divided into three realities:
Borrowing Partners at Truefi: These are organizations looking to borrow capital to operate in markets such as Wintermute.
Partners are portfolio managers: These are professional fund managers who implement lending strategies and lend money on Truefi. Some of the portfolio managers in Truefi are as Ultimate List, Woo Network, Caisi Finance...
Partners are blockchain foundations: Partnership expansion with layer 1 and layer 2 development teams will create opportunities for TUSD to expand the scope of market operations. So far, TUSD has been appearing on more than 10 well-known chains.
Additionally, in October 2022, Circle partnered with TrueFI to allow support for verifying Verite Kyb information (“Know Your Business”) to access TrueFI’s lending platform via USDC. This allows teams that can trust the ability to trade with partners’ teams by verifying their identities in the organization’s Metasploit wallet.
in conclusion
Archblock has two main products: TrueFX and Truefi. TrueFX is a product that allows users to create tokens guaranteed by real properties on the blockchain, with TrueUSD (TUSD) being the most successful StableCoin. Truefi is a lending marketplace for professional organizations and cryptocurrency investors. Both products gain credibility from the community and organizations in the cryptocurrency market.
Archblock is also a bridge that helps CeFi organizations access Defi through a strong network of lenders and borrowers, and fully mobilise liquidity on the platform, helping loans on the blockchain become transparent, efficient and easy to continue. Closer.
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