Reflect raises $3.75M to build yield-bearing stablecoin infra on Solana

The raise is led by a16z crypto

article-image

Vera Larina/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Reflect Money announced today a $3.75 million seed round led by a16z crypto’s CSX accelerator, with participation from Solana Ventures, Equilibrium, BigBrain Holdings and Colosseum. 

Reflect won Grand Champion in Colosseum’s 2024 Solana Radar hackathon.

The new capital will fund a “software-as-a-stablecoin” infrastructure that lets any app issue yield-bearing dollars without lockups or operational complexity, the team told Blockworks.

Reflect’s pitch is straightforward: Idle stablecoin balances should be put into productive DeFi yield strategies.

“Every idle asset represents dead capital…which should be earning while you sleep, while you trade, while it sits in your wallet,” Reflect CEO Nico James said.

Reflect protocol tokenizes onchain DeFi strategies — delta-neutral basis trades, lending, etc. — then turns deposited USDC balances into a yield-bearing “USDC+” while remaining fully liquid.

Stablecoins will be non-custodial and be minted and redeemed at will. 

Think Morpho white-label vaults meet M^0’s stablecoin-as-a-service. Or just Ethena.

DeFi strategies are executed by smart contracts and are limited to the team’s own curated strategies for now. Curated DeFi strategies will be open to developers subject to governance approval, the team told me.

In short, Reflect empowers any developer to become its own neobank.

As part of risk management, each strategy is backed by an autonomous, onchain insurance liquidity pool. 

This “Global Insurance” pool will leverage Jito restaked assets for liquidity, an approach described as akin to FSCS-like insurance for traditional banks.

The insurance pool also allows for slippage-free, MEV-free and feeless rebalancing across strategies.

Reflect is targeting an early-September mainnet launch that will support USDC on Solana.

“Stablecoins are a ~$280 billion market earning zero yield,” James said. “We’re about to change that.” 

If it works, “idle dollars” on Solana might become an endangered species.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

EtherFi, the largest liquid restaking protocol, is repositioning itself as a consumer-facing crypto neobank. Beyond staking, it is building a revenue mix around cards, vaults, and trading, aiming to capture sustainable front-end economics in DeFi. The shift highlights EtherFi’s ambition to expand from infrastructure into a full financial platform.

article-image

The all-stock deal adds over 10,900 Bitcoin to Strive’s treasury while shifting Semler’s diagnostics unit toward preventative care

by Blockworks /
article-image

Layer 1 chain Stable adds PayPal USD support as PayPal Ventures invests to grow stablecoin’s cross-chain utility

by Blockworks /
article-image

New compliance features, native credit markets, and zero-knowledge proofs position XRPL for institutional finance adoption

by Blockworks /
article-image

The Ministry of Finance set 2027 for rollout of CARF rules, with information exchanges starting in 2028

by Blockworks /
article-image

Victims of Coinbase’s May data breach are not on the same page about a path forward

article-image

Plasma debuts a “neobank” for stablecoin users, integrating payments, savings, and transfers in emerging markets

by Blockworks /