Exploring Move Dollar: The Over-Collateralized Stablecoin on Aptos

Author

Optimus Prime
December 07, 2024

With $2.3 billion in trading volume, 5,800 active users, and over 9 million total supply in the last 12 months, @ThalaLabs Move Dollar (MOD) makes Defi an exciting experience on Aptos.

MOD (Move Dollar) is the first over-collateralized stablecoin built natively on the Move programming language. Allowing users like you to mint MOD against whitelisted collateral through Thala Labs' protocol.

So, with core products like Thala Swap, Liquid Staking, and Thala Launch on @ThalaLabs, users have an incredible opportunity/reason to use MOD stablecoin intuitively and without fuss.

If you think about it, what's the purpose of a stablecoin you can't access or use? This begs the question: how many users currently use MOD?

There are over 200K active users on Thala Labs, and with a 4.1% increase in users in the last 30 days, you start to get the feeling of how many users are already exposed to MOD through Thala.

However, a chunk of those users primarily use Thala Swap. But from the other thousands who use Thala Farming, about 5.8K of them actively utilize MOD across different pools, DEXs, and bridges.

From a user POV, MOD as a stablecoin simplifies DeFi on Aptos through Thala. Think of it as the spine that keeps everything running smoothly—from trading to farming and back!

DeFi gets sweeter with Move Dollar (MOD)

I believe the value of any stablecoin depends on the demand, supply, and accessibility ratio to its utilization. Here's what I mean.

In the last 90 days on @ThalaLabs, there have been 101 million staked APT, 8.8 million staked THAPT, 10K stakers, and a growing trend of rewards being claimed on thala labs!

With rewards on @ThalaLabs, you can (an example) deposit APT and receive the equivalent thAPT. You can decide to stake your thAPT into the LSD and then mint sthAPT because sthAPT holders receive 100% of sthAPT validator rewards plus 80% of thAPT validator rewards.

Which is incredible, right? But it gets even better. sthAPT can be used as collateral to mint MOD (Move Dollar). Then you can provide MOD liquidity or participate in MOD-related farming activities on thala labs and get rewards in turn for that.

Just looking at this chart here, you will notice a consistent weekly engagement, which means users are actively participating in MOD-specific farming programs.

Also from the Trend of MOD Provided vs. USD Value chart, you'd see how users are increasingly providing MOD liquidity, reaching peaks of 200-250M in total value.

The MOD Redemption Trend chart adds another layer to this story as it shows cyclical patterns with a notable spike in July 2024, reaching nearly 1,000 redemptions.

This trend means MOD is growing, and this aligns with the broader growth in MOD's cumulative supply graph's steady upward trajectory and the significant mint-burn activity in November 2024.

I do think Thala has a robust Defi ecosystem on Aptos and MOD operating as a fully collateralized stablecoin on the platform that integrates seamlessly across different DEFI use cases and platforms. Here's what I mean:

$MOD Utility with Defi Categories

MOD's utility across DeFi categories is particularly visible in its trading and liquidity dynamics. The pie chart below shows MOD's extensive trading pair reach, with USDC dominating as the primary trading pair, occupying the largest segment

  • APT forms the second most significant pairing

  • THL, USDT, and tAPT round out the major trading pairs

  • Additional pairs include tokens like thAPT, wBTC, and GUI

So this means you can swap between MOD and other tokens directly on Thala and access different price curves optimized for specific pairs.

But that's not all; MOD's DEX distribution is quite interesting. As expected, Thala captures the vast majority of MOD transactions; however, there are minimal transactions on Liquid Swap, Anime Swap, and Pancake Swap.

Regardless, across these DEXs, there's been a consistent swap volume of 40-50M monthly since September 2024 through November.

Was looking through the numbers, and I said to Joel, Bruh, this is the first over-collateralized stablecoin built natively on the Move language. I am quite excited about its use case.

Move Dollar (MOD) is growing rapidly.

It's quite clear from the data referenced within this article.

I think with DeFi hitting new highs on Aptos, the growth and use case of MOD would only increase! Particularly because MOD's deep integration with ThalaSwap's specialized pools (weighted, stable, and liquidity bootstrapping) allows users to access DeFi while maintaining stability through a diverse collateral basket like

  • Liquid-staked derivatives,

  • Liquidity pool tokens, and

  • Real-world assets.

And since it offers users unique yield opportunities through Thala's robust farming ecosystem that has distributed 57.2k in rewards across 474 claims, Move Dollar could keep growing even more!

Data Reference:

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