Stable hits $825 million pre-deposit cap amid 'front-running' allegations

Stable, a Layer 1 blockchain focused on stablecoin transactions, announced that Phase 1 of its pre-deposit campaign reached its $825 million hard cap shortly after opening.

The campaign allows users to deposit stablecoins, primarily USDT, in exchange for future rewards tied to the network’s upcoming native token and ecosystem incentives. Phase 1 attracted contributions from institutional partners, including Frax Finance, Morpho Labs, Pendle, LayerZero, and others.

However, several users of the social media platform X claimed that the majority of deposits were executed by a small group of large wallets. This drew scrutiny from crypto community members, who complained that actual room for retail participation was very little.

Citing onchain data, X user and crypto researcher @0xastronomica claimed that 600 million USDT was already deposited by ten large wallets prior to the announcement of the campaign going live. Another X user @emmettgallic claimed that one address linked to the BTSE crypto exchange transferred approximately $500 million in USDT, accounting for over 60% of the total.

"Is a public sale really a public sale if you don't tell anyone until its full?" @emmettgallic wrote. "The Stable Pre-Deposit was posted as live by stable 1:13 UTC and the last deposit was 1:14 UTC. On the other hand the first deposit was 00:48 UTC."

The Block has reached out to Stable for comment.

Stable, backed by Bitfinex and USDT0, is developing a high-throughput network optimized for USDT payments and dApps. Following today's announcement, Phase 2 of the campaign is expected to follow, though no timeline has been provided.