Key Crypto VCs Back BNB Chain-Based Project

Standard Money, a developer in the stablecoin sector, has successfully secured $8 million in a strategic funding round to accelerate the development of its USDsd stablecoin. The investment, first reported by CoinDesk, will primarily support the project’s upcoming main network launch, the establishment of liquidity partnerships, and its global expansion.

The funding round was led by blockchain investment firm Easy Labs. It also drew significant participation from major industry players, including the cryptocurrency exchanges Gate.io and Crypto.com, along with Web3 and metaverse specialist Animoca Brands. The involvement of these established companies provides Standard Money with not only capital but also strategic access to large user bases and deep industry expertise.

Fueling Mainnet Launch and Global Operations

The new capital is earmarked for several key milestones designed to propel USDsd into its next growth phase. A primary focus is the mainnet launch, which will transition the stablecoin from a development environment to a fully operational public blockchain. This move is critical for enhancing the asset’s security, transparency, and reliability for users.

Funds will also be used to forge crucial liquidity partnerships, ensuring that USDsd can be easily traded and converted across various platforms. Strong liquidity is essential for maintaining a stablecoin’s peg and facilitating seamless transactions within the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Finally, the investment will support the expansion of Standard Money’s global operations to foster international adoption.

The Role of Stablecoins in the Digital Economy

Stablecoins like USDsd serve as a vital link between the volatility of digital assets and the stability of traditional fiat currencies. They offer a reliable store of value and an efficient medium for transactions, shielding users from the price fluctuations common to other cryptocurrencies.

Standard Money built USDsd on the BNB Chain, a strategic choice that leverages the network’s high transaction speeds and lower costs. This positions USDsd as an efficient option for digital payments and transfers, particularly for users already active within the growing BNB Chain ecosystem. This successful funding round signals strong investor confidence in Standard Money’s vision to contribute a robust and widely used stablecoin to the market.

Modern cryptocurrencies rely on a distributed ledger to record every transaction, creating a permanent and transparent system that prevents counterfeiting and double-spending without a central authority. However, a new quantum framework from Google researchers could render this complex infrastructure unnecessary by solving the same problem through the laws of physics.

This concept, known as “quantum money,” is built on a principle called the no-cloning theorem. The theorem states that it’s physically impossible to create an exact copy of an unknown quantum state. If a unit of currency were represented as a quantum state, any attempt to duplicate it would be fundamentally doomed to fail.

Dar Gilboa, a Google Quantum AI researcher and co-author of the study, explained the core idea. “If you had a $1 bill that was actually a quantum state, you could prove, based on the properties of quantum mechanics, that copying such a state is impossible,” he said. “You could only succeed with very small probability.”

A New Take on a 1960s Vision

The idea of using quantum mechanics for security isn’t new. Physicist Stephen Wiesner first proposed it in 1969, outlining a method for creating counterfeit-proof “private-key quantum money.” His paper, published in 1983, envisioned each banknote as a unique quantum state with a serial number that only the issuing mint could verify.

While Wiesner’s work inspired further research into publicly verifiable quantum money, many subsequent models proved insecure. Google’s proposal returns to a more centralized model, requiring a trusted issuer like a bank or government to create and validate the quantum tokens. Gilboa clarified that this approach isn’t a direct analog to decentralized cryptocurrencies.

Despite its centralized nature, the system includes a unique privacy feature. The issuer would have no ability to track how the money circulates after it’s been minted. Users could perform a “swap test” on their tokens to detect if the issuer is secretly tagging or tracing them. “Any attempt by the bank to secretly tag its money would be instantly revealed,” Gilboa noted.

Promises and Practical Limitations

In late October, Google’s quantum research team announced a significant computational breakthrough, demonstrating what scientists call “quantum advantage” by executing a task far beyond the reach of classical machines. The team’s quantum computer calculated a molecule’s structure 13,000 times faster than conventional systems.

However, experts caution that this achievement, while impressive, doesn’t mean practical applications are imminent. According to Winfried Hensinger, a professor of quantum technologies at the University of Sussex, the experiment solved a problem impossible for classical computers but is not yet ready for real-world use.

Even Google acknowledges that practical quantum computers capable of supporting technologies like quantum money are still years away. Fully fault-tolerant machines would require hundreds of thousands of quantum bits—a scale far beyond what today’s experimental systems can handle.