Brale rolled out SBC (Stable Coin) as it’s own entity which is exciting for a few reasons. Some I shared on X, and some I’ll expand on here.
SBC was originally built as a foundational stablecoin at Brale, and it has played a crucial role in the company’s evolution. Unlike many stablecoins designed to generate yield, SBC wasn’t created with that specific intent. Instead, it has ended up being used in ways that were initially non-obvious, showcasing how adaptable the stablecoin model can be when freed from the typical expectations of yield-bearing products.
There are still a few key features that make SBC high value and reliable. It has the basics nailed, which is shared with all stablecoins on the Brale platform. The team taking stewardship of SBC has a great starting point.
The Challenge of Developer Tooling
One of the most important observations from the development of SBC is that, despite the growing importance of stablecoins, there isn’t as much easy-to-implement developer tooling available as you might expect. Especially not for new stablecoins.
Circle has done a fantastic job fostering developer support around its stablecoin USDC, creating an ecosystem that empowers developers worldwide. Coinbase has made strides with projects like OnchainKit, designed to improve usability and adoption of blockchain technologies which are incredible advancements for USDC and stablecoins broadly. But when you’re building something new in the stablecoin space, especially if your project is smaller, these solutions rarely apply. It’s almost like you have to start from zero just like Circle and Coinbase did, and that can be tough without their budget.
Many of these innovations were developed with meaningful liquidity and large ecosystems in mind. But if you’re working on a smaller-scale stablecoin project, solving for the same fundamental problems (e.g., liquidity, user onboarding, gasless transactions) without the resources of a multi-billion-dollar company, those tools become less relevant. In fact, the challenges faced by smaller stablecoins, often too niche to even be listed on an exchange, are rarely covered in these large-scale innovations. Most projects, in terms of shere numbers, go totally under the radar. They are primarily discovered and used only by the communities they benefit most, inside of the products that serve them.
Rethinking the Value of Stablecoins
Stablecoins are often thought of in terms of market cap, reserve revenue, and transaction volume, but this can obscure the bigger picture. As we’ve seen in the development of the internet, if the most visited and most profitable websites were the only ones on the internet, it would be a much poorer, less dynamic world. The same principle applies to stablecoins. If only the largest matter, we lose the opportunity for innovation at the smaller, community-driven level. After all, big ideas often start with a few people sitting at a table.
The Need for Better Tools
The truth is that for small community projects, such as a sub-$1M market cap stablecoin in Kansas City, building stablecoins is about solving the same basic problems faced by giants like USDC, but with far fewer resources. Implementing stablecoin payments into your app is a lot harder for an engineer in Hong Kong building with bespoke stablecoins to implement gassless transfers. In both situations, the developers still need the tools to facilitate onboarding, liquidity, security, and usability — the same tools that the bigger players have, but at a fraction of the scale.
This is why I’m excited to see SBC focusing on the tools that can help new projects succeed. It’s not about having just one or two dominant stablecoins — it’s about empowering a wide variety of projects, each serving different niches and needs.
Stable Coin Inc is led by Jeff Milewski and and is based in San Francisco, CA. You can learn more about the project by contacting them directly and following them on X.