Public Mint Partners with KIRA to Enable Cross-Chain Liquid Staking

[Press Release – San Francisco, California, 10th May, 2021]

Public Mint and KIRA have announced a strategic partnership that would see Public Mint’s native tokens integrated in KIRA’s cross-chain liquid staking platform, enabling holders of Public Mint’s USD+ and MINT tokens to benefit from cross-chain DeFi opportunities while continuing to receive yield through Public Mint.

KIRA is an interoperable blockchain hub that offers cross-chain liquid staking for a number of tokens. Liquid staking is an innovative DeFi primitive that tokenizes a user’s staked assets to enable seamless use in other environments. KIRA will allow users to deposit their Public Mint native assets, including the USD+ synthetic stablecoin and the MINT governance token, which will be seamlessly staked to continue to receive yield. In return, users will receive an IOU token that represents the funds locked in the platform and can be redeemed at any time for the underlying funds. Using a tokenized representation means that the underlying funds can be used seamlessly as if they were the original token, and can be put to work through other DeFi yield opportunities, effectively multiplying capital efficiency and yield.

Through the integration with KIRA, Public Mint assets can be connected to a number of other blockchains supported by the network thanks to its Interchain Exchange Protocol (IXP). This further enhances Public Mint’s vision of interoperability, adding to the existing native bridge with the Ethereum blockchain.

“We’re excited to be partnering with KIRA to further connect the Public Mint blockchain with the wider crypto ecosystem,” said Paulo Rodrigues, CEO of Public Mint. “KIRA’s liquid staking ability will vastly increase capital efficiency and attract more liquidity to Public Mint’s Earn program. We expect to see even more use cases for USD+ and MINT deriving from this integration in the future.”

“Building a truly inclusive and capable DeFi ecosystem is what KIRA stands for, which is why we designed our cross-chain liquid staking system,” said Milana Valmont, CEO of KIRA. “Partnering with Public Mint furthers that vision to bring KIRA to the widest audience possible, especially given their focus on users who are not too crypto-savvy.”

Public Mint is a complete platform for synthetic fiat that is fully collateralized, regulated and FDIC-insured, running on a fiat-native blockchain. The platform is designed to be fiat-friendly, allowing non-crypto users to earn significant yield on their assets without exposing themselves to the complexity and volatility of cryptocurrencies. The EARN program is Public Mint’s yield aggregation platform, containing strategies that combine yield opportunities from both DeFi and more traditional cryptocurrency lending, commonly referred to as “CeFi.” EARN will be available from Q3 through the Public Mint mobile wallet app, complete with a native fiat-to-crypto rail, as well as with USDC bridged from the Ethereum blockchain.

About Public Mint

Public Mint bridges the worlds of traditional fiat with the innovative world of crypto. It offers a complete platform for synthetic fiat, regulated and fully collateralized with funds held on deposit with FDIC-insured financial institutions.

Public Mint offers a fiat-native blockchain, APIs and web components, open and ready for anyone to build fiat-native applications and accept credit cards, ACH, wire transfers, and more — no bank accounts needed.

About KIRA

KIRA is the first decentralized network that enables market access to any digital asset in the crypto ecosystem. Users can earn block and fee rewards from staking any digital asset on multiple chains at the same time, while maintaining full liquidity and custody over their funds, whether trading on KIRA or using other DeFi apps simultaneously.