Nouns Treasury Management - USDC

TL;DR

This proposal deploys a portion of the DAO’s idle USDC into productive staking while maintaining meaningful liquidity for future proposals. Specifically, the DAO currently holds 484,743 USDC in its treasury. Under this proposal, 300,000 USDC will be staked via Origin Protocol’s Origin Dollar (OUSD) for yield generation.

After receiving OUSD, the position will be wrapped into wOUSD, a non rebasing version of OUSD that eliminates unnecessary taxable events triggered by daily yield distributions. Following this transaction, the DAO will retain approximately 184,743 in native USDC form to preserve flexibility for future proposals.

Passing of this proposal will generate approximately $1,375 per month ($16,500 per year) that can be used to offset or cover the cost of other future proposals and operational expenses. The wOUSD can be unwrapped and redeemed for the underlying USDC at all times.

Specifications

Launched in 2020 by Origin Protocol, OUSD is an ERC20 stablecoin that generates yield while sitting in your wallet or multi-sig. Backed 1:1 by USDC, holders can go in and out of OUSD as they please. Yield is paid out daily and automatically (sometimes multiple times per day) though a positive rebase in the form of additional OUSD, proportional to the amount of OUSD held. OUSD yield, currently ~5.5% APY, comes from a combination of:

1. Deploying USDC collateral to a Curve AMO
2. Lending USDC collateral to Morpho on ETH mainnet, Base, and Hyperliquid
3. Reward tokens (MORPHO, CRV, and CVX) are automatically claimed and converted to stablecoin
4. OUSD sitting in non-upgradable contracts does not rebase, instead the interest generated from those tokens is provided to those that can rebase

Current and historical OUSD yields can be seen via the OUSD analytics page at all times. Proof of Yield tracks every OUSD yield event as the yield is distributed.

There is no set emission schedule for OUSD - similar to stETH, OUSD is minted on demand when users deposit their stablecoin into the protocol, and burned on demand when users redeem OUSD for the collateral USDC. OUSD is completely non-custodial, there are no lock-ups, terms, or conditions. Any web3 wallet can support OUSD and its rebasing function, including hardware wallets and multi-sigs. There is no need to ever again give up the keys to a 3rd party platform, such as Celsius, Blockfi, or FTX, to earn yield on stablecoin.