Usual ETH0

Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.

ETH0 is Usual’s synthetic ETH on Ethereum, fully collateralized by Lido’s wrapped staked ETH, but it is not itself a liquid-staking provider: Usual retains the wstETH native yield and ETH0 holders receive separate USUAL emissions. TVL was about $1.76 million at the 2026-08-15 survey, far under our $100 million materiality line. Rejected on size: one practice advising 100 households moves $1M to $8M into a venue on the same research, and below $100M TVL that book becomes the exit crush. Size alone decides it, whatever the protocol’s quality. Sustained growth reopens the file.

Kill criteria: the events that revoke this verdict
• TVL sustained above $100M for 30 days

The research file

Mechanism applicability

Users mint ETH0 permissionlessly by depositing wstETH worth one ETH per ETH0 into Usual’s Ethereum collateral contracts. ETH0 is non-rebasing and retains full ETH price exposure; native wstETH yield is captured by the protocol while holders receive USUAL emissions. The current synthetic token and its collateral balance are the surveyed record, and their size directly triggers the shared v1 below-materiality dossier.

Current observation and lifecycle

The DefiLlama protocol API read on 2026-08-15 classified Usual ETH0 as Synthetics and reported approximately $1.76M entirely on Ethereum. Current Usual documentation and a factsheet updated in 2026 identify ETH0 as launched, list live contracts, and describe Hexens and Spearbit reviews. This is an active single-chain product rather than a roadmap or archived token.

Control and exit applicability

Chainlink and Lido rate oracles govern mint and redemption values, circuit breakers can pause operations, and upgradeable contracts plus DAO and role-based controls can change parameters including the redemption fee. A holder can redeem ETH0 permissionlessly for wstETH at the oracle rate less a 5-basis-point fee, then bear Lido withdrawal or market execution to reach ETH. Lido, oracle, pause, governance and secondary-liquidity risks remain.

Why the class rule decides

ETH0 does not satisfy the category-reviewed dossier’s requirement that the alternate be a genuine liquid-staking provider for the same use case. It is a synthetic ETH wrapper whose protocol captures the backing yield and pays holders separate USUAL emissions, so applying the LST-selection class would conceal Usual oracle, governance and reward-token dependencies. At roughly $1.76M TVL, a $1M to $8M advised allocation would be a dominant fraction of the system; the shared v1 below-materiality dossier therefore remains the controlling current class. Reopen after TVL remains above $100M for 30 consecutive days, then compare ETH0 with direct ETH, wstETH and selected LST exposure on net yield, controls and proposed-size exit.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Usual — ETH0 product overview · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: wstETH collateral, ETH0 synthetic, Ethereum, product lifecycle
• Usual — ETH0 collateral and risk · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: Lido dependency, slashing risk, oracle risk, liquidity risk, governance controls
• Usual — ETH0 current factsheet · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: current lifecycle, Ethereum contracts, 5 bps redemption fee, DAO governance, audits
• Usual — protocol audit registry · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: ETH0 audit, Hexens, Spearbit, security review
• DefiLlama — Usual ETH0 survey record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: current TVL, Ethereum, Synthetics category, survey observation

Inherited controls

The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.