After our Blink Labs treasury proposal was approved, we ran into something we weren’t fully prepared for: the gap between receiving ADA and actually being able to operate with it.
We evaluated multiple conversion paths: Cardano native stablecoin options, large exchange routes, OTC desks. The lesson wasn’t that one provider is always best. The lesson was that conversion planning is far more complex than the ecosystem currently treats it.
We wrote up everything we learned in a full article, but I wanted to bring the core questions here because I think this is a community conversation worth having.
What we found
The phrase “convert to stablecoins” hides a lot of operational detail, fees, bridges, redemption flows, jurisdiction restrictions, business account requirements, legal authority and audit records. Many funded teams are individuals or informal collectives without the entity structure to access the better conversion paths.
Stablecoin choice is also more operational than ideological. USDC, USDCx, and USDM each have different costs, custody models, liquidity and off-ramp paths. The right answer differs by team and transaction size.
What the ecosystem should build
This is a solvable problem, but it requires intentional infrastructure:
- A treasury conversion playbook for proposers
- Standard legal and custody templates for single and multi-vendor projects
- Public fee and route comparison examples
- Provider checklists for OTC, CEX, DEX, bridge and redemption routes
- Better Cardano-native stablecoin liquidity for B2B use
- Guidance for DReps and administrators reviewing treasury management plans
Questions for the community
Have other funded teams run into these same issues? What conversion paths have worked for you and what hasn’t? And importantly, should someone like a PRAGMA, Intersect or FEs be driving the creation of a treasury operations playbook for proposers?
Would love to hear from proposers, DReps, administrators and stablecoin providers.
Full article here: https://medium.com/@blinklabs_io/just-convert-to-stablecoins-is-not-a-treasury-plan-5622350e6970