Athena and Securize Submit Joint Application to Spark's $1B Tokenization Competition

Athena, the Ethereum-based synthetic dollar protocol and the issuer of the USDe stablecoin has submitted a joint application with Securitize for Spark's $1 billion tokenisation competition.

Athena, the Ethereum-based synthetic dollar protocol and issuer of the USDe stablecoin, has applied to Spark’s $1 billion tokenisation competition with Securitize.

The application is in addition to Securitize’s application to the Grand Prix for BUIDL, with the companies describing the applications as “complementary.”

Spark, which runs a lending platform on the Sky ecosystem (formerly MakerDAO), is offering $1 billion of liquidity to selected onboarding partners.

Athena contributes $120 million in revenue to the Sky ecosystem, which represents 30% of the total revenue.

Athena and Securitize are proposing a swap facility using Athena’s upcoming stablecoin USDtb and USDe. The facility aims to help the Sky ecosystem manage allocation between the assets in response to interest rate changes, according to the application.

The Spark Tokenization Grand Prix, which was launched in July, aims to onboard up to $1 billion of tokenised assets, with the option for even greater expansion.

In Athena’s and Securitize’s bid, the USDtb stablecoin reserves will be invested in BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, with BUIDL making up more than 90% of its initial backing. “USDtb will use Blackrock’s BUIDL as the primary reserve asset backing the token and is the only stablecoin offering in the market designed to be majority backed by BUIDL,” the companies wrote in their application.

The results of the bidding process will be submitted to the Sky governance for a vote by Sky token DAI (formerly Maker USDS) holders for discretionary and final decisions regarding the potential onboarding, SparkDAO said in an announcement in July.