Etherfuse Stablebonds (CETES, USTRY, TESOURO, KTB, GILTS, EUROB)
Review open since 2026-10-08: Etherfuse Stablebonds (credit claims on sovereign bonds bought through Mexican brokers: CETES, USTRY, TESOURO, KTB, GILTS, EUROB) on Stellar: the power to freeze a holder is now yes, the file recorded no; the power to claw back tokens is now yes, the file recorded no; Issuer account GCRYUGD5NVARGXT56XEZI5CIFCQETYHAPQQTHO2O3IQZTHDH4LATMYWC was a single key and is now a multisig (not checked against the chain’s log) (read at block 64817117). Ketju will review the file before any client action. A draft revision dated 2026-10-08 is under audit and would change the assessment. The verdict stands until the review closes.
Summary
Ketju does not approve Etherfuse Stablebonds: the holder terms bar US persons, and the holder has only a contract claim against a small Mexican company that no financial authority supervises. A Stablebond is a claim against Etherfuse MX on the nominal value of government bonds. Etherfuse MX buys the bonds with the holder’s money and keeps them in its own accounts at Mexican brokers. A sister company, Etherfuse Liquid MX, issues the token as a ledger-based security under Swiss law, with each bond’s Solana mint as the register. If Etherfuse fails, holders must go to a Mexican court and ask to separate the assets from the estate. A holder also takes the currency risk of the bond. Etherfuse holds the control keys: a 3-of-5 multisig can upgrade every EVM copy, and one key can upgrade the Solana programs that mint.
- Etherfuse opens the Stablebonds to US persons under a registration or exemption
- Etherfuse moves the bonds into a trust, fund or segregated account in the holders’ name, or a regulator takes on supervision
- An attestation shows reserves below the tokens in issue, or attestations stop
- The Solana program upgrade key, the Stellar issuer flags, or the EVM owner Safe changes
- The customer agreement or a registration agreement is replaced
Ketju checks this memo every night. A review opened on 2026-10-08 and appears under the verdict above. The verdict stands until the review closes.
Research
How it works
Two contracts define the product. The first is the customer agreement between the customer, Etherfuse MX, S.A. de C.V. and Etherfuse Liquid MX. It says Etherfuse receives the customer’s money ”in administration,” and Etherfuse MX uses it to buy the bonds the customer picks. Etherfuse MX ”grants the Customer the individual credit right on nominal value of the Securities that are acquired.” Etherfuse pays the claim in two ways. It passes on the yield as ”Rewards,” which show up as a rising token price. At the end of the last payment period it pays the bond’s nominal value, which it must send to the holder’s wallet within three business days. The Stablebonds overview calls the token ”a proportional economic claim” on a pool, valued at NAV. The token has no peg: one CETES token was worth MXN 1.18 on 23 September 2026.
The second contract is a Swiss registration agreement for each bond. MME Legal in Zurich prepared it, and each Solana mint’s metadata links to it. It names Etherfuse Liquid MX, S.A.P.I. de C.V. as issuer and Etherfuse MX as administrator of the ledger. It makes the Solana mint the register under article 973d of the Swiss Code of Obligations: ”The entitlement to the securitized Instruments exclusively results from the Securities Ledger.” Swiss law governs the token’s form and transfer, and Mexican law governs the claim itself.
MME’s own letter of 8 April 2025 is addressed to Etherfuse Inc of Irvine, California. It calls the structure ”feasible” if the terms and the smart contract comply, and states that MME did no independent check. The registration agreement names only the Solana mints. It does not cover the Stellar, Base, Polygon and Monad copies, which carry most of the value: 11.51 million of the 11.52 million USTRY sit on Stellar.
The documents disagree on who issues the token. The customer agreement defines the token as issued by Etherfuse Liquid. The legal FAQ calls the Stablebonds ”Tokens issued by Etherfuse®,” and it defines Etherfuse as Etherfuse MX. Either way, the holder’s money claim is against Etherfuse MX.
Size and holdings
Six bonds are live: Mexican CETES, US Treasuries (USTRY), Brazilian Tesouro, Korean KTB, UK gilts and euro bonds. On 23 September 2026 Etherfuse’s own feed put them at about $18 million in total. USTRY made up $12.4 million and CETES $4.8 million.
Custody
Etherfuse says the bonds sit at BBVA México, Actinver Casa de Bolsa and Kuspit Casa de Bolsa, under brokerage agreements in Etherfuse’s name. It says Indeval, Mexico’s securities depository, holds the CETES. Its product page says instead that Etherfuse holds each bond ”in the home country of the issuer.” Both statements cannot be true for gilts, Korean bonds or Treasuries, and neither page names a custodian outside Mexico. An independent firm, which the page does not name, attests from time to time that reserves match the tokens in issue.
Losses and incidents
Etherfuse argues that holders are protected in a bankruptcy. Etherfuse receives the money in administration under a commercial mandate and never takes ownership. Article 70 of Mexico’s insolvency law therefore lets a customer bring a separation action and remove the assets from the estate before creditors are paid. The agreement forbids Etherfuse to lend or pledge the money.
This legal route exists, but the holder must bring a lawsuit in Mexico City. The assets sit in Etherfuse’s accounts, and the bonds are not in the holders’ names. The agreement also lists the customer as a possible ”Common Creditor.” No trustee, security agent or segregated vehicle stands between the holder and the company.
On 16 April 2024 the CNBV, Mexico’s securities regulator, issued Resolution P090/2024 to Etherfuse Liquid. It found that the tokens are neither credit titles nor securities under Mexican law, and that the service needs no authorization. The customer agreement states the result: the CNBV supervises neither the agreement nor Etherfuse Liquid. Etherfuse offers the product in Mexico by ”reverse solicitation,” a private invitation.
Eligibility
The holder terms carry a Regulation S legend: ”The Holder is not a U.S. Person as defined in Rule 902(k) of Regulation S,” and ”the Company shall not register the transfer of the Tokens in violation of these restrictions.” The customer agreement also excludes residents of FATF grey- and black-list countries. Etherfuse checks every customer’s identity before it opens an account. The documents state no purchase minimum.
The contracts do not enforce any of this. We found no allowlist on any chain we read, so anyone can receive a Stablebond on a secondary market. Such a holder cannot get paid without Etherfuse. The agreement states that the claim ”may be exercised solely and exclusively by the new owner of the Token who complies with the terms and conditions for maintaining a contractual relationship” with Etherfuse. The holder of a token in an unverified wallet therefore cannot collect on it.
Withdrawals
A verified customer sells back to Etherfuse at NAV. Etherfuse says it does this ”any business day.” It pays in pesos to a Mexican bank account, its only live fiat rail, or in USDC through a swap. A holder of a peso, real or won token carries that currency’s risk against the dollar. On Base, Etherfuse’s guide tells integrators to sell at least about 50 CETES at a time. Gas is bundled into the fee, and the fee may not exceed half the order.
Fees
The ramp fee is 0.20% for volumes below $5 million a month. Etherfuse also keeps 0.25% to 1.5% of the bond yield, and its share rises with the yield.
Who controls it
We read CETES on each chain on 23 September 2026. On Solana it is a Token-2022 mint with no freeze authority and no permanent delegate, so nobody can freeze or take a holder’s tokens. Its only extensions are an interest-bearing rate and a metadata pointer. A key of Etherfuse’s stablebond program sets the rate. The mint authority is a 1-of-2 SPL multisig (A6nFyQb2…). Its two signers are accounts of two Solana programs, one of them Etherfuse’s stablebond program. The same ordinary key (FAGLBF88…) can upgrade both programs. One signature can therefore change the code that decides when new tokens are minted. The registration agreement lists freezing as ”n/a,” but it lets the administrator ”pause all transactions” during a technological change.
On Stellar, the issuer account (GCRYUGD5…) has no authorization, revocation or clawback flag set, so it cannot freeze a trustline today. The flags are not locked, so the issuer could set them later for new trustlines. All six bonds share this one issuer account.
On Base, Polygon and Monad, each bond is a LayerZero OFT behind an upgradeable proxy. The owner is a 3-of-5 Safe (0x14b92824…), which also controls the proxy admins. The Safe can upgrade the code, choose which contracts on other chains may send tokens in, and set rate limits. The Safe, or a pauser it names, can pause any bridge route. A pause stops tokens leaving the chain but does not stop transfers between holders. However, an EVM holder’s sale to Etherfuse bridges the tokens back, so a paused route also stops that sale. The Monad implementation is not verified, so we could not confirm its powers there.
Comparison
BUIDL, BENJI and WTGXX put a registered fund share on chain. A transfer agent keeps the register, a custodian holds the fund’s assets in the fund’s name, and a US regulator supervises the manager. USDY and the Spiko funds use a note or a European fund with a security agent or depositary. Etherfuse has none of these layers. The holder lends to Etherfuse MX, which promises to hold bonds and pay them out. The holder’s protection is that promise, a Mexican separation action and periodic attestations. The on-chain design is cleaner than most, with no freeze on Solana or Stellar. However, of the treasury products on the Register, Etherfuse gives the holder the weakest legal claim.
Sources
Each claim above comes from one of these sources. Where Ketju could not verify a number, the memo states that.
- Etherfuse (CETES) Registration Agreement, MME Legal (plain text) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: issuer Etherfuse Liquid MX; administrator Etherfuse MX, Solana mint is the ledger under CO 973d, freezing n/a; pause during technological change - Etherfuse, Agreement for the Provision of Services and Commercialization of Tokens (plain text) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: credit right on nominal value, funds in administration; no lending, claim only by owner with a relationship, maturity payment within 3 business days, no CNBV supervision - Etherfuse, Terms & Conditions (US securities-law restrictions) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: Regulation S; no US persons, transfers breaking the restrictions not registered - Etherfuse legal overview: Asset Security · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: BBVA México, Actinver, Kuspit, separation action under LCM art. 70, common creditor, unnamed attestor - Etherfuse legal overview: Legal FAQs · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: CNBV Resolution P090/2024, reverse solicitation, tokens issued by Etherfuse MX - Etherfuse legal overview: Stablebonds Overview · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: NAV claim, not pegged, fee 0.25% to 1.5% of yield - MME Legal, Tokenization under Swiss law according to article 973d CO (8 April 2025) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: addressed to Etherfuse Inc, Irvine, feasible, subject to conditions, no independent verification - Etherfuse: Stablebonds product page · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: redeem at NAV any business day, custody in the home country of the issuer - Etherfuse public API: stablebonds and token costs · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: supply and NAV per bond and chain, about $18 million in total - Etherfuse CETES token metadata (linked from the Solana mint) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: CETES held through Indeval, registration agreement linked on chain - Etherfuse developer docs: Ramp Fees · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: 20 bps below $5 million a month, Mexico the only live fiat rail - Etherfuse developer docs: Base · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: offramp at least about 50 CETES - Stablebond OFT implementation on Base (Sourcify exact match) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
Supports: LayerZero OFT, pause blocks outbound routes only, owner sets peers and rate limits
The asset and the chain
This memo covers the protocol. A position also holds an asset and settles on a chain. Whichever of the three holds the most power over the position decides who can freeze it. These tables describe control and do not judge quality.
| Chain | Verdict | Freeze | What it can do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | Approved with limits | Governed, no freeze | no admin key can seize funds, but stake is concentrating and the Nakamoto coefficient is below 25. |
| Stellar | Not approved | Issuer can freeze | freeze is native at every level: issuers hold revocation and clawback flags on their assets, and since Protocol 26 the validator quorum can vote to freeze specific accounts and trustlines on-chain (CAP-77). |
| Base | Approved with limits | Mixed control | Coinbase, one regulated US company, operates the only sequencer, and admin keys can upgrade bridge contracts within about 7 days. |
| Polygon PoS | Not approved | Mixed control | a public validator set orders transactions, but a 5-of-9 multisig can instantly upgrade staking and canonical bridge contracts, and a 5-of-8 multisig controls custom child tokens. |
| Monad | Approved with limits | Governed, no freeze | the L1 has a public path for validators, but its short production record, single initial client lineage and Foundation-directed delegation keep stake and operations concentrated. |