Brale's ION Protocol uses burn-and-mint to move stablecoins across blockchains without pre-funded liquidity pools, targeting the scaling bottleneck for hundreds of custom tokens.
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Stablecoin infrastructure firm Brale is rolling out a new protocol to solve what it says is the biggest obstacle to scaling custom stablecoins: moving them across different blockchains.
The $300 billion stablecoin market is dominated by Tether's USDT and Circle Internet's USDC. But the number of issuers is growing fast. Banks, fintechs, crypto firms and asset managers are launching their own branded tokens for payments, settlements and tokenized assets. CoinGecko already tracks more than 350 of these coins. That volume shows the growing need for infrastructure to connect an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.
Brale's ION Protocol uses a burn-and-mint approach. A token is burned on one network and an equivalent amount is minted on another. The model does not require liquidity pools to be pre-funded on every supported chain. That contrasts with most blockchain bridges, which lock up capital across each network.
Brale founder and CEO Ben Milne said the liquidity between stablecoin programs is the biggest barrier to scaling bespoke stablecoins. “There's not enough capital in the world to solve the problem,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Brale supports more than 100 stablecoin programs across over 30 blockchains. Many of its customers process billions of dollars in monthly payment volume while maintaining relatively small stablecoin balances because their tokens are designed for transactions rather than investment.
ION extends the burn-and-mint model to any participating stablecoin issuer. That is similar to Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), which is limited to USDC. Circle Internet Group (CRCL) operates the second-largest stablecoin.
The protocol debuts with partners including Monad, Rain, Coinflow, Turnkey, Etherfuse, Spark and Canton. It is initially on testnet. A broader rollout timeline has not been disclosed.
Milne said the current interoperability model will not scale as more issuers introduce their own versions. Without sufficient capital to build deep liquidity pools for every stablecoin on every blockchain, the industry needs a different approach. ION is Brale's answer.
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