Alpha Recap #19: TheoUSD, Sky's buyback, and a closer look at an alternative to TGEs

The Alpha Recap aims to bring you the most important crypto market Alphas of the week. Every Friday, we deliver a curated digest of the most valuable insights from our Alpha Feed.

Exclusive to OAK Premium members, the Alpha Feed brings together market insights, yield and airdrop strategies, and key market intelligence. In short, the DNA of OAK Research: filtered content that cuts through the noise.

TheoUSD: $100M deposited in under 24 hours

We first started covering Theo two weeks ago in our Alpha Feed, and for good reason: in a market saturated with stablecoins that have little genuinely new to offer, Theo puts forward a truly innovative model.

The project aims to launch the first gold-backed stablecoin with a highly competitive yield of 8.2%. Theo's ambition is to solve what's known as the stablecoin trilemma: achieving yield, scalability, and limited volatility all at once. No stablecoin today delivers all three.

In practice, thUSD is built on two pillars. First, thGOLD, which represents tokenized exposure to a fund that lends gold to industry participants at around 2% yield. Second, a delta-neutral strategy where Theo goes long on thGOLD for every unit of thUSD minted, while simultaneously shorting gold on derivatives markets (CME, Hyperliquid, Binance, etc.).

These two strategies, both entirely gold-based, should theoretically produce a yield of around 8.2%. And the model is scalable precisely because it is built on gold, which offers market depth that crypto simply cannot match.

Theo's thesis has clearly found its audience: the $100M pre-deposit was filled in under 24 hours.

→ Read our Early Bird article on Theo and the case for the first gold-backed yield-bearing stablecoin:

Sky cuts its buyback by a factor of 10

USDS supply has just crossed $11 billion, prompting Sky Protocol to temporarily revise its buyback policy.

Until now, roughly 75% of the protocol's net revenues were allocated to buying back SKY tokens on the open market, an intentionally aggressive dynamic. But as USDS grows, the reserves needed to absorb potential stress scenarios must grow with it, something the current model makes difficult to sustain.

Against this backdrop, Sky is proposing a drastic reduction in buybacks. For three months, the share of net revenues allocated to repurchases would drop to 7.5%, ten times less than today. The difference would be redirected toward reserves designed to protect USDS holders. At the same time, SKY staking parameters remain unchanged, while the Sky Saving Rate has already been slightly lowered to 3.75%.

Sky frames these adjustments as temporary. The problem is that no specific target has been communicated regarding what reserve level would be deemed sufficient, which makes the three-month horizon feel entirely arbitrary. In the medium term, this decision removes a meaningful bullish support for the SKY token.

Spotlight on Stratium, a protocol that openly rejects launching a token

This week, we took a closer look at Stratium, a still under-the-radar protocol in the Hyperliquid ecosystem that offers an LST system built on HYPE to fund the launch of HIP-3 markets.

This community-driven funding model, already used by projects like Ventuals, allows protocols to grow without relying on outside investors. That matters in a context where VC funding consistently involves tokens acquired at low prices and gradually sold during unlock periods, creating sustained downward pressure.

Stratium takes this logic further by simply committing to never issuing a native token. According to the protocol, the typical airdrop playbook often serves to capture short-term attention but results in governance tokens that go largely unused and quickly depreciate. The current valuations of major projects like Kinetiq and Hyperlend illustrate just how widespread this market rejection has become.

Instead, points accumulated by users will be converted into USDH, Hyperliquid's native stablecoin, representing a share of fees generated by the protocol. Rewards are thus directly tied to the product's actual performance, while also creating a coherent liquidity loop since Stratium's markets are themselves denominated in USDH.

Finally, a portion of the revenues generated via HIP-3 is redistributed to Hyperliquid, indirectly contributing to HYPE buybacks. The protocol's success therefore benefits the entire ecosystem, without introducing an additional token.

To access exclusive Alphas, as well as our Watchlist, the OAK Index, premium reports, and daily recaps, join OAK Premium.