Why you’d issue a branded stablecoin

I think the difference is that there is still a maintenance of stored value, but that stored value is now able to earn more yield than what you would by depositing it at a bank.

In both the cases described in the article - using Unit or Bridge - you pass on the work of stored value to someone else. But Unit doesn't earn as much by being the stored value as Bridge would because Bridge is invested into T bills / MMFs. Hence, Mercury coin is better than running a bank using Unit.

Is that fair to say?

This is a great question, I actually don't even think it's strictly a matter of "more" yield.

To dig into your example a bit deeper, there are a few general differences with an (eg.) Unit vs. Bridge.

- With a BaaS like unit, you're often actually forming a partnership _not just_ with Unit (a software provider), but the partner banks Unit works with. More specifically, you're operating two sorts of programs with the partner bank: programs around "money transmission" (_moving_ money on behalf of customers) and around "stored value" (_storing_ money on behalf of customers). Each of these programs tends to be pretty involved - as is having to be in a three-party agreement etc, working with an old-school bank, under legacy banking constructs, etc.

- With Bridge: Bridge is your single partner. Bridge _itself_ has partner banks for the sake of both banking + money movement, but when you store customer funds as stablecoins in a crypto "wallet" Bridge spins up, it is operationally different than if you were to store them as fiat in a customer-specific bank account you opened at Bridge's partner bank, under a classic FBO/DDA program. The partner bank Bridge using is more involved in the money _transmission_ piece, when you want to receive customer funds in as fiat, or push customer funds out as fiat - but the funds being stablecoin at rest would seem to reduce the burden here.

So yes that might result in some cost-saving, but it's also just (vaguely) _easier_ to do from a technical/operational POV.

(Some of the details above may be wrong / vary by provider / etc - but having worked with both of these sorts of providers at some length, this is my "felt" difference and high-level understanding).

The theory, at least, is that everyone would eventually be incentivized to move deposits out of the banking system and into this.

(I am not sufficiently expert here to comment on the odds of an outcome like that)

Everything you're describing makes sense in terms of legal requirements, but none of it seems to require any form of cryptocurrency or stablecoins.

“At no cost”

Actually there is a lot of cost, in terms of bank reputation, loan underwriting, and finding consumers and businesses to lend to. There is an entire loan servicing department etc.

Banks are allowed to keep fractional reserves and lend out money they create out of thin air.

Stablecoins are not. (Hi, Terra Luna!) Stablecoin issuers like DAI even overcollateralized. That money is sitting there doing nothing. Enter… banks.

USDT rebuffed the EU’s push to get them to deposit into European banks. They prefer US treasuries (and the current admin is lucky they’re doing it because the treasuries are taking a dive… and some of them are even looking into forcing partners to buy US treasuries and issue stablecoins).

The GENIUS act requires stablecoin issuers essentially to keep 100% of the money in deposits and to work with US banks, and prop up the US treasuries and dollar.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2025/05/06/why-s...

You see, originally, Tether (issuers of USDT, the original stablecoin) kept a lot of their collateral in Bitcoin, which was essentially creating an asset bubble / ponzi scheme where newly printed USDT propped up BTC and vice versa. But since the US government started running multi-trillion-dollar deficits every year, it has also become a ponzi scheme, just a sovereign-debt-based ponzi scheme.

That’s the real play here, for a country that’s $35 trillion in debt and needs to keep demand for its treasuries going… because printing money as UBI — to trickle up, get taxed and service the debt properly — just aint in its overton window. The link below goes over exactly how a UBI could solve multiple problems at once over a few decades (help cushion the demand shocks for human labor, help make taxes on pollution and fossil fuels popular, and help the government actually pay off its debt)… but since USA probably isn’t going to do this on a federal level, it might make sense to go bottom-up, town by town:

https://community.intercoin.app/t/ubi-is-not-socialism-but-i...