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Anatomy of a Stablecoin: Stablecoins are some of the most complex products in the crypto neobank space. What sits behind a digital dollar is hard to follow. The reserves, the banks, the mint, the chains. The legal side is even harder: who can issue it, which rules apply, what changes from coin to coin. That's true whether you're building your own stablecoin or just deciding which one to use. I built Anatomy of a Stablecoin to simplify it: programmablemoney.net/stable… It lets you explode a stablecoin and see everything that happens in between. You can flip it, zoom in and follow $100 in and out. Here's everything inside: Learn: 12 questions, in the order people actually ask: 1. What is a stablecoin? 2. What is inside it? 3. What backs every token? 4. Where is the money actually held? 5. How are tokens created and destroyed? 6. Who checks your identity before a coin is made: KYC, AML and sanctions screening 7. What the token actually is: a smart contract that tracks balances and can mint, burn and freeze 8. How does money get in and out? 9. What keeps the price at $1? 10. What makes it legal in the US? 11. Who builds each piece? 12. How do real stablecoins compare? The 7 layers of a stablecoin: 1. Compliance: KYC, AML monitoring, sanctions screening and the Travel Rule 2. Reserves: cash, T-bills under 93 days, overnight repos and government money funds 3. Custody: segregated accounts, and holders get first claim if the issuer fails 4. Mint and burn: a token is created when a dollar comes in and destroyed when it goes out 5. Smart contract: ERC-20, SPL, TRC-20, plus the freeze, pause and blocklist functions 6. Blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Base, Tron, BNB Chain, the XRP Ledger, Polygon, Arbitrum, Stellar, TON, Avalanche and Citrea 7. The token: the balance you actually see in your app Follow the money: • Money in: Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, bank transfer and crypto • Money out: bank payouts, push to card, P2P apps, card spend and crypto • Watch $100 go through every step: fund, verify, reserve, mint, deliver, trade, redeem, pay out 16 real stablecoins: 1. XO Cash: Exodus's dollar, issued by MoonPay on M0, on Solana 2. ctUSD: the dollar for Bitcoin apps on Citrea, issued by MoonPay on M0 3. USDT: the biggest, about $182B, issued from El Salvador 4. USDC: Circle's coin, about $71B, the largest US regulated stablecoin 5. USDe: Ethena's synthetic dollar, backed mostly by stablecoins it lends out plus hedged bitcoin and ether 6. DAI: no company issues it; smart contracts create it and SKY holders govern it 7. USD1: World Liberty Financial's dollar, issued by BitGo, a federally chartered trust bank 8. USDG: Paxos's Global Dollar, where partners can get up to all of the reserve income 9. PYUSD: PayPal's dollar, issued by Paxos 10. RLUSD: Ripple's dollar, issued by a New York trust company Ripple owns 11. USDD: TRON's dollar, backed mostly by TRX 12. U: an offshore coin on BNB Chain that says it has no license 13. TUSD: one of the oldest, with most of its reserves caught up in a court fight 14. EURC: Circle's euro coin, about 60% of the euro stablecoin market 15. SoFiUSD: issued directly by a US national bank 16. Phantom CASH: issued by Bridge on Solana For each one: issuer, license, reserves, reports, chains, supply, who can mint directly and whether holders earn yield • Check the supply yourself: links to CoinMarketCap, DefiLlama and each issuer's reserve report • Race up to 4 dollar coins side by side and watch the same $100 move through each one Who builds it: • MoonPay, Circle, Tether, Paxos, Anchorage, Bridge, M0, Ethena and Coinbase, plus the analytics, custody and liquidity players • Click a company and the model lights up the layers it runs • See which coins each one really issues. 4 approaches to launching a dollar token: 1. Become the issuer: Obtain the required authorizations and take responsibility for reserves, redemption and compliance. Most direct control; generally the heaviest operational burden. 2. Use an issuance partner: Providers such as MoonPay, Paxos, Anchorage, or Bridge offer branded stablecoin issuance. You manage the brand and customer experience; the issuer's responsibilities and regulatory permissions depend on the specific arrangement. 3. Build on shared infrastructure or an existing stablecoin: Use a platform like M0, potentially with an issuance partner. PYUSDx is an example: MoonPay issues PYUSDx against PYUSD at 1:1; Paxos issues the underlying PYUSD. This adds another issuer and redemption layer. 4. Create a synthetic dollar: Use collateral plus derivatives hedges to target a dollar value, as Ethena does with USDe. This is a different backing model. Ethena's staking product, sUSDe, accrues rewards; simply holding USDe does not. The rules: • The 8 GENIUS Act requirements, checked live as you change the design: licensed issuer, 1:1 eligible reserves, segregated reserves, monthly reports, redemption at $1, an AML program, sanctions and freeze controls, no yield to holders • The 4 issuer routes: bank subsidiary, federal nonbank, state issuer under $10B, and offshore • Drag the price off $1 and see how fast it comes back. Strong reserves snap back, weak ones don't • Switch to an algorithmic coin and watch it break the way TerraUSD did in 2022 Build your own • Pick how you issue (a platform like M0 or PYUSDx, a partner, or your own license), plus the reserves, controls, chains and how money gets in and out • Score it against GENIUS in real time, out of 8 • Get a launch plan with a timeline: about 12 weeks on a platform, about 20 with an issuing partner Two modes 1. Simple: one circle that shows where your money goes when you add money, spend with a card or withdraw 2. Pro: every layer, every rail, every rule 149 sources behind it, all linked on the page: programmablemoney.net/resour… Spot something wrong, or have an idea to make it better? DM me here or on LinkedIn. All feedback helps. ⚠️ DISCLAIMER ⚠️ A personal project built from experience. Not legal, financial or investment advice. Not affiliated with any company named. Talk to licensed professionals before you build anything. This is a collab with @0xmars_! Thank you for helping me with massive launch.