If infra is the organ of the public chain, then DeFi is the blood of the public chain — the success or failure of a blockchain ecosystem's DeFi often determines whether this public chain has true vitality. For the BTC ecosystem, the current development of DeFi is far behind the construction of infrastructure, with a serious lack of functional modules and an ecosystem that has yet to form a strong endogenous cycle. Among all modules, stablecoins play an irreplaceable key role, serving as the foundation for payments and liquidity, as well as the core engine driving the development of other DeFi scenarios (such as lending, derivatives trading, and on-chain settlement).
The importance of stablecoins in the DeFi ecosystem lies in their provision of a value-stable bridge, reducing the risks and barriers for users participating in DeFi. Whether for on-chain transactions or cross-border payments, the existence of stablecoins allows users to avoid directly bearing the impact of Bitcoin price fluctuations. However, the lack of a native, comprehensive stablecoin issuance protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem not only limits the overall development of DeFi but also restricts the potential of the BTC ecosystem as a financial network.
With the gradual improvement of smart contract solutions under the UTXO model, the RGB++ ecosystem has also welcomed new possibilities for issuing stablecoins. These protocols can not only achieve native support for BTC but also interconnect with multi-chain ecosystems through innovative cross-chain mechanisms, laying the foundation for building a truly native financial ecosystem for BTCFi.
Thus, Interstellar Payment Network (IPN) was born — it is an innovative payment solution based on Bitcoin, aimed at promoting the transition of Bitcoin from a value reserve tool to a global payment network through technological breakthroughs and product innovations.
One of the core highlights of IPN is USDI, a programmable stablecoin running on the Bitcoin network that not only redefines Bitcoin's payment capabilities but also provides an important pillar for the development of decentralized finance (BTCFi).
USDI is the first programmable stablecoin issued on the Bitcoin mainnet, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and backed by 100% high-credit, high-liquidity asset reserves. This design ensures its value stability and reliability, allowing it to replace traditional fiat currencies in various payment and financial scenarios.
At the same time, the technical structure of USDI adopts the UTXO model, which is highly compatible with the native design of the Bitcoin network, enhancing transaction efficiency and significantly improving security. Compared to account models, the peer-to-peer characteristics of UTXO allow each transaction to be independently verified, avoiding systemic risks and providing users with a more stable trading experience.
In terms of technical implementation, USDI relies heavily on the RGB++ protocol. This protocol brings smart contract functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem, making USDI not just a payment tool but also capable of embedding complex financial logic, supporting conditional payments, automatic settlements, and other advanced applications. Additionally, the design of RGB++ greatly enhances the scalability of USDI, allowing it to maintain high performance and privacy protection while ensuring decentralization and security. This architecture injects new vitality into Bitcoin's payment capabilities, enabling the programmability of stablecoins on the Bitcoin mainnet.
The application scenarios of USDI are very broad, especially showing significant advantages in the field of cross-border payments. Traditional cross-border payments often face high costs and long settlement periods, while USDI can achieve second-level transactions at low costs, thanks to the support of the Lightning Network. As a second-layer scaling solution for Bitcoin, the Lightning Network significantly enhances transaction speed and network capacity by establishing off-chain payment channels. Users can settle instantly within these channels, avoiding the need to wait for on-chain confirmations and significantly reducing transaction fees, making USDI more competitive in actual payment scenarios.
This efficiency and convenience make it an important tool for globalization of payments. Furthermore, USDI also has enormous potential in the field of financial inclusion. Through a simple Bitcoin wallet, anyone can use USDI to participate in the decentralized financial ecosystem without relying on traditional banking systems. Meanwhile, USDI can also provide stable and efficient payment experiences in high-frequency payment scenarios such as e-commerce, gaming, decentralized exchanges (DEX), and lending.
The support of the RGB++ protocol makes USDI a core force in promoting the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem. As "digital gold," Bitcoin's value storage function is widely recognized, but its limitations in the payment field hinder large-scale adoption. The emergence of USDI provides Bitcoin with a low-volatility, easily circulatable payment solution, making its practical application on a global scale possible. Through USDI, Bitcoin's functionality extends from a mere asset reserve tool to a comprehensive financial network that integrates value storage, payment, and smart contract functionalities.
The significance of USDI is not limited to the Bitcoin network; it also supports other UTXO-based blockchain systems, including CKB, DOGE, and BCH, through the extensibility of RGB++. It provides native stablecoin support for these ecosystems, achieving the goals of cross-chain payments and multi-ecosystem interoperability. This diversity and flexibility allow USDI to be widely applicable across different blockchain networks, truly promoting the collaborative development of the decentralized financial ecosystem.
As an important component of IPN, USDI not only provides users with a secure and stable payment tool but also connects traditional finance with the blockchain economy through technological innovation. The vision of IPN is to lower the barriers to global payments, promote financial innovation, and achieve true financial inclusion and convenient cross-border payments by building such a powerful payment network. Through the combination of USDI and RGB++, IPN is injecting new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem and opening the future of decentralized payments.
In addition to IPN, the Stable++ based on the RGB++ protocol also brings a native stablecoin solution to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Stable++ is a decentralized, permissionless, over-collateralized stablecoin protocol that has already launched on the mainnet, with its issued dollar stablecoin being RUSD. Unlike USDI, which is backed by 100% high-credit, high-liquidity asset reserves (such as STBT issued by Matrixdock), RUSD's collateral consists of cryptocurrencies (currently BTC and CKB). If USDI is the "USDT (Tether)" of the Bitcoin ecosystem, then RUSD is the "Dai (MakerDAO)" of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Despite differences in collateral and mechanism design, both IPN and Stable++ bring native stablecoin solutions to the Bitcoin ecosystem, and thanks to the RGB++ protocol, these stablecoins can also interconnect with multi-chain ecosystems through innovative cross-chain mechanisms, laying the foundation for building a truly native financial ecosystem for BTCFi.