A stablecoin is supposed to do one thing: stay at a dollar. Apyx Finance’s apxUSD, which bills itself as the first dividend-backed synthetic stablecoin, couldn’t quite manage that on June 4 when it dropped to between $0.90 and $0.93. The culprit was a decline in STRC preferred shares, the very asset propping up the token’s value.
The depeg happened as Bitcoin slid below $63,000, pulling down the valuations of Bitcoin-adjacent equities including the Digital Asset Treasury companies whose preferred shares back apxUSD. A 7-10% deviation from peg is the kind of thing that makes DeFi users reach for the exit button, especially when the stablecoin in question has a circulating supply between $415 million and $476 million.
How apxUSD actually works
Instead of fiat reserves, apxUSD is collateralized by preferred shares of Digital Asset Treasury companies, specifically STRC shares. As of March 2026, Apyx Finance held approximately 288,888 STRC shares valued at around $29 million. The protocol maintains an over-collateralization ratio exceeding 100%, meaning there’s theoretically more value backing the stablecoin than the stablecoin itself represents.
The stability mechanism relies on several layers. Dividend disbursements from the underlying DAT companies provide ongoing cash flow. Cash buffers absorb short-term volatility. And arbitrage incentives encourage traders to buy apxUSD when it’s cheap and redeem it when it’s expensive, naturally pushing the price back toward $1.
