Mint
Approve, then Mint: the contract takes your USDC and mints USDest to your allowlisted wallet in the same transaction, with slippage protection passed as a minimum amount received.
For institutions
Mint and redeem USDest 1:1.
USD.estate uses an allowlisted market model for direct protocol interactions. Direct minting and redemption at the smart contract level are limited to KYC/KYB-verified market makers and institutional depositors approved by the USD.estate Foundation.
1:1 USDC
Mint / redeem
0 bps
Mint & redeem fee
At launch; changeable only through the timelock.
5%
USDC buffer
Settles in the same transaction.
Immediate
Allowlist changes
Compliance actions, not timelocked.
Mint & redeem
How mint and redeem work.
You deposit USDC and receive USDest 1:1, less any mint fee. Redeeming burns USDest and returns USDC 1:1, less any redemption fee.
Redeem
- Within the buffer
- Redeem burns USDest and sends USDC to the recipient in the same transaction whenever the amount is within the USDC buffer — 5% of the reserve at launch.
- Above the buffer
- Your USDest is escrowed and the request shows as Pending Settlement. When the tokenized T-bill fund redemption settles, on the fund's own dealing cycle, the USDest is burned and USDC is sent.
Settlement
- Mint
- Immediate, in the same transaction
- Redeem ≤ USDC buffer
- Immediate, in the same transaction
- Redeem > USDC buffer
- After the tokenized T-bill fund settles its redemption, on the fund's own dealing cycle
Approved reserve funds must offer at least daily dealing, so redemptions above the immediate USDC buffer settle on the fund's published cycle — typically same-day or T+1 — rather than on a multi-day one. The USDC buffer is a protocol parameter (USDC_BUFFER_BPS), set to 5% at launch.
Fees and limits
No institutional mint or redeem fee is charged at launch (MINT_FEE_BPS = 0, REDEEM_FEE_BPS = 0). Either may be set above zero only through the timelock.
Each approved institution has per-period mint and redeem limits, set per institution at onboarding and reviewed periodically. These are per-counterparty limits rather than a single global cap.
Reserve
Where institutional USDC goes
USDest is fully backed by USDC reserves. Part of the reserve is held in tokenized funds investing in short-dated US Treasury bills, and the rest is held as USDC to meet redemptions. The reserve is custodied by the BasePositionManager, not by the USDest contract, and total supply can be verified onchain at all times.
| Reserve component | Liquidity | |
|---|---|---|
| USDCRedemption buffer for approved institutions | Redemption buffer for approved institutions | Immediate |
| Tokenized T-bill fundYield on reserves, harvested into sUSDest | Yield on reserves, harvested into sUSDest | Per the fund's dealing terms |
USDest has no exposure to real-estate bonds or any issuer. Those risks sit only in sUSDest.
Why an allowlist
Why an allowlist?
Compliance
Direct counterparty relationships give clear source-of-funds evidence for every dollar entering the reserve.
Security
Restricting contract-level minting to verified entities removes the attack surface for “infinite mint” and similar exploits.
USDest itself stays permissionless.
Any wallet can hold, transfer, stake and unstake USDest without restriction, and secondary markets on DEXs and CEXs are open to all. Approved institutions that arbitrage the secondary price against 1:1 mint and redemption keep USDest trading close to one dollar.
Onboarding
Three steps to an allowlisted wallet.
Step 01: Verify
Email institutions@usd.estate and complete KYB/KYC onboarding with the Foundation's verification provider.
Step 02: Sign
Sign the Institutional Mint & Redemption Agreement between the Foundation and your entity.
Step 03: Allowlisted
Your wallet is added to the mint/redeem allowlist with per-institution limits. Additions and removals are compliance actions: they take effect immediately and are not timelocked.
Account statuses
- Pending
- Onboarding submitted and under review.
- Active
- You may mint and redeem within your limits.
- Suspended
- Mint and redeem are temporarily disabled, for example pending periodic KYC refresh.
- Offboarded
- The wallet has been removed from the allowlist. You can still hold, transfer and trade USDest.
Get in touch
Talk to us.
Minting and redeeming USDest directly is available only to KYC/KYB-verified institutions approved by the USD.estate Foundation. Approved institutions manage their account, limits and mint/redeem history in the App.