Raft’s R Stablecoin Surges as Traders Embrace Liquid Staking Ether Products

Raft, a stablecoin issuer whose flagship token is backed by staked ether (stETH) from Lido, crossed $55 million in total value locked today, a sign of strength for the roughly three week-old protocol.

Raft’s TVL has increased 4,595% since June 5, growing even as other protocols building stETH-backed stablecoins have stalled, such as Lybra, whose TVL around $180 million remains basically unchanged for the month, per blockchain statistics firm DefiLlama. Lybra’s eUSD stablecoin has a market cap of $84 million, while Raft’s R sits at $29 million.

The surge in Raft, an alternative stablecoin issuer, highlights the booming market for liquid staking tokens, which enable users to main liquidity, despite locking their ether to earn rewards for securing the Ethereum blockchain. The liquid staking sector has a combined TVL of more than $20 billion, putting it ahead of decentralized exchanges, lending platforms and bridging protocols as DeFi’s top dog.

“LSDFi will continue to dominate the DeFi space over the next few months and beyond,” Raft CEO David Garai told CoinDesk over Telegram, referring to Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSD).

Garai also noted that Raft “will be adding other staking derivatives as collateral over the next few weeks.” He predicted this would further increase TVL “significantly.”

While Raft is centered around its R stablecoin, the team has had ongoing conversations about introducing RAFT, an additional token intended to empower community members and help decentralize the protocol, Garai confirmed to CoinDesk.