USDλ
The exchange dollar, backed one-for-one by escrowed USDC.
USDλ is the dollar inside Lambdachain. Every USDλ is backed by one USDC held in an escrow vault on the chain it came from, and it can be redeemed for that USDC at any time.
How it is minted
USDλ comes into existence in exactly one way: a deposit is locked in a vault, and a proof of that deposit is verified on STRATO. The minter contract credits USDλ only against proven deposits. The set of addresses allowed to mint is fixed at deployment and can only ever shrink, never grow — so on a production deployment the supply of USDλ can never exceed the USDC behind it.
Card and Apple Pay deposits follow the same path: the on-ramp deposits USDC into the same vault, and the resulting USDλ is backed by the same escrow.
On the current testnet, an operator key is also a minter, so play-money USDλ can be created for the faucet without real escrow behind it. A mainnet deployment ships with that key absent — leaving proven deposits as the only mint path.
Where it lives
- In your trading account, as collateral for positions. Here it earns yield and backs your trades.
- In your wallet, as a token on STRATO. Hold it as sUSDλ to earn the same yield outside the exchange.
Redeeming
Withdraw USDλ from your account to your address, then redeem it through the bridge for USDC on Ethereum. See Withdrawals.