UIP-17: Acquisition of Fira by the Usual DAO

Short title: Fira, Fixed-rate rails for onchain finance Author: Usual Labs (submitted to the governance of the Usual DAO) Category: Core infrastructure / Credit rails

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Summary

Usual Labs has developed Fira, a new fixed-rate lending/borrowing infrastructure designed to move DeFi from “spot credit” (floating rates, no maturities) to a maturity-based rate market with continuous price discovery and real liquidity.

This proposal asks the Usual DAO to:

1. acquire the infrastructure and IP developed for Fira by Usual Labs,
2. make Fira a component of the Usual ecosystem,
3. ensure that IP ownership and revenues from Fira accrue to the DAO and, ultimately, to USUAL holders, consistent with the intent of UIP-15.

In short: voting “Yes” means ensuring Fira’s infrastructure belongs to the DAO.

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Context & Why now

Today, DeFi lending is floating by default: rates move continuously with utilization. There are no native maturities, therefore no term structure, therefore no real curve, only a spot price of capital.

As a result:

• Borrowers cannot lock their funding cost.
• Lenders cannot lock their yield.
• Treasuries and long-horizon actors cannot plan (cashflows, duration, budgets, maturities).

In TradFi, markets are built around maturities and fixed rates because time has a price.

If DeFi is to become a real financing layer (not just opportunistic liquidity), it must move from spot to maturity.

Most importantly: demand already exists within Usual.

The success of USL (a 5% fixed-rate borrowing product) demonstrated clear appetite for predictable funding: more than $400M of USD0++ collateral in under 6 months (organic growth). Fira does not create the need, it turns it into a market.

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Vision Fira, building the onchain yield curve

Fira turns “time” into a tradable dimension:

• rates by maturity
• continuous price discovery
• real liquidity (not isolated pools per expiry)
• a foundation for “bank-grade” primitives: duration, maturity ladders, treasury planning, underwriting

The upside is structural: global fixed income totals $145.1T outstanding (2024), while DeFi lending TVL is ~$63.8B. The next step-function growth for DeFi will come from rate markets, not only from more leverage.

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Why fixed-rate protocols historically struggled (and what Fira fixes)

Fixed-rate protocols often failed not because fixed rates don’t matter, but because of market structure issues:

• fragmented liquidity (one pool per expiry),
• early exits were theoretical but illiquid,
• liquidity was discontinuous (dependent on incentives or matching).

Fixed-rate needs continuous liquidity + real exit optionality.

That is the core of Fira’s design: treat maturity as a first-class dimension, enabling clearer pricing and usable liquidity.

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What Fira brings to Usual

Usual aims to become a full onchain neobank. In fintech, credit isn’t optional; it’s a core pillar. Fira adds the missing credit layer to Usual’s stack:

• Usual: capital, stability, balance-sheet primitives, and outcome-oriented products
• Fira: fixed-rate credit rails, maturities, term structure, and onchain rate discovery

Together, they unlock two things at once:

• simple, predictable credit products for end users (rate certainty)
• a treasury- and institution-grade system (duration, maturity planning, precise pricing)

Concretely, Fira enables Usual to:

• Own credit TVL again: credit activity routes through Usual-owned infrastructure (Fira), improving attribution and strategic control
• Reduce fee leakage and dependency risk: less reliance on third-party lending venues and their changing parameters/incentives
• Bootstrap the credit backbone: fixed-rate rails that support future products across the planned neobank stack
• Enables exclusive synergies with Usual's stablecoin ecosystem.

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Product roadmap (provided by Usual Labs)

Fira v0 & Usual Zero Rate on January 14

• Launch of the Usual Zero Rate (UZR): Fira’s first market.
• Goal: allow Usual to own its TVL again and avoid paying external fees, so value can accrue back to USUAL holders via the DAO.

Fira v1, protocol expansion

• Fixed-Rate Markets: Borrow and lend at fixed rates, enabling clear pricing across maturities.
• Floating-Rate Markets: Utilization-based, variable-rate borrowing and lending for users who prefer flexibility and continuous liquidity.
• Dynamic Lending: Liquidity dynamically allocated to improve efficiency and deepen demand hotspots.
• Yield Trading: Composable yield tokens linked to both fixed and floating rates, enabling users to trade yield directly and build structured strategies.

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Engineering effort & Security

Usual Labs has already committed:

• 5 full-time developers
• 3 audits completed
• 2 audits in progress

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Proposal: what the DAO is voting on

1) Acquisition & ownership

By approving this UIP, the Usual DAO:

• acquires the Fira infrastructure and associated IP developed by Usual Labs,
• becomes the entity that owns the contracts, technical stack (front-end included), brand/identity, documentation, and rights required to operate the protocol,
• ensures that revenues and value generated by Fira accrue to the Usual ecosystem (and not to an external entity).

2) UIP-15 alignment: value accrual for holders

Consistent with UIP-15 principles:

• Fira becomes infrastructure owned by the DAO,
• governance of its parameters, growth strategy, and economic model is decided by holders,
• value (revenues/fees/upside) remains in the hands of the DAO.

3) Governance & operations

This UIP mandates the DAO to:

• define the governance framework for Fira (market parameters, maturities, supported assets, caps, risk framework, fee model, and future tokenomics model),
• set up an operational structure for future curation to propose parameters, oversee rollout, and publish reporting,
• plan a progressive deployment through the UZR market, which will be managed by Usual Labs.

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Deliverables included in the transfer (DAO-grade checklist)

To remove ambiguity, the acquisition includes (at minimum):

• Codebase (repos, history, tests, CI, deployment scripts)
• Smart contracts deployed / deployment-ready (addresses, configs, roles)
• Documentation (Gitbook, runbooks, technical & product docs)
• Audit reports + tracking of findings (3 completed, 2 in progress)
• Front-end / integrations required for public usage (if within scope)
• IP & brand assets (naming, design system, content, usage rights)
• Maintenance plan (responsibilities, release cadence, patch process)
• Security plan (pause guardian, emergency procedures, bug bounty if applicable)

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Economics: why this is an obvious “Yes” for holders

Voting “Yes” means:

• fees are captured by the DAO,
• growth in TVL and activity becomes infrastructure revenue for the ecosystem,
• Usual builds a moat: owning fixed-rate rails means owning a layer others will want to build on (treasuries, structured products, partners, strategies).

This is the difference between using infrastructure and owning it.

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Risk analysis & mitigations

Smart contract / security risk

• Mitigation: multiple audits, progressive rollout, initial caps, pause/guardian controls, monitoring, bug bounty.

Liquidity / adoption risk

• Mitigation: start with the first market (UZR), iterate, conservative parameters, targeted incentives if needed (to be proposed in a dedicated UIP).

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What this UIP does not do (by design)

• It does not set all final market parameters yet (exact maturities, final caps, detailed fee model).

  → These can be submitted in follow-up UIPs once the acquisition is approved.

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Development Price & Acquisition Price for Fira v1

Usual Labs has already invested $1,720,000 in direct development and launch costs over ten months to build and secure Fira v1. This budget reflects the actual resources required to deliver a rate-native protocol with production-grade security and operational readiness.

Breakdown

• People — $1,070,000
  • Engineers (x3): $350,000
  • Product design & management: $50,000
  • Quant & financial expertise: $340,000
  • Project management: $160,000
  • Security & technical leadership: $90,000
  • Marketing & PR: $80,000
• Audits — $500,000
  • Fira USL & Lending Market precursor (Cantina, Sherlock, yAudit): $100,000
  • Fira v1 security audits (x2) + competition / fix review: $400,000
• Infrastructure — $150,000
  • Environments, tooling, deployment and operational infrastructure required for launch.

Proposed Acquisition Price (Infrastructure + IP)

In line with UIP-15 (DAO ownership of core infrastructure and associated revenues), Usual Labs proposes that USUAL DAO acquires Fira’s infrastructure and IP at cost, for a total acquisition price of: $1,720,000 (before local taxes)

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Conclusion

Fira is not “another product.” It is a new credit primitive.

• Fixed-rate is a market.
• The yield curve is infrastructure.
• And infrastructure should be owned by the DAO, not rented.

If Usual is serious about becoming a full onchain neobank, maturity-based credit is non-negotiable. Fira is that layer, and this UIP puts it permanently in the hands of holders.

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Vote

• FOR, Usual DAO acquires Fira (infrastructure + IP) and mandates the rollout under DAO governance.
• AGAINST, Usual DAO does not acquire Fira.
• ABSTAIN, Neutral.