Independent Lifecycle Case Studies of the BRZ/USDC Pools on Stabull Base and Polygon
By Jamie McCormick, Co-CMO, Stabull Labs
The third article in the 15 part “Deconstructing DeFi” Series.
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This article examines the lifecycle of two independent BRZ/USDC pools, deployed on Polygon and Base. Although both pools support the same asset pair and operate under the same protocol design, their execution paths diverged meaningfully over time.
That divergence was not engineered. It was revealed by the market.
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Asset Context: BRZ as an On-Chain BRL Instrument
BRZ is a Brazilian Real–denominated stablecoin designed to provide direct, on-chain exposure to BRL without relying on synthetic FX instruments or off-chain settlement rails.
Unlike USD-denominated stablecoins, BRZ reflects a local-currency unit with its own macroeconomic drivers, liquidity cycles, and directional pressures. As a result, BRZ/USDC pools behave less like speculative crypto pairs and more like FX corridors — quiet for extended periods, then active in concentrated windows when inventory needs to be repositioned.
Execution in BRZ is episodic by nature. The absence of constant flow is not a weakness; it is characteristic.
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Methodology and Data Discipline
All figures referenced in this case study are derived directly from public on-chain data.
Swap activity was reconstructed from token transfer exports for each pool. Only transactions with exactly three transfer rows were classified as swaps: one input transfer, one output transfer, and one protocol fee transfer to the known fee wallet. Liquidity adds, removals, approvals, and non-conforming transactions were excluded.
Volume was calculated using the output currency only, with gross output defined as the amount received by the trader plus the protocol fee transfer in the same asset. Where BRZ was the output currency, USD-equivalent values were inferred using the implied FX rate of each trade itself.
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Lifecycle Overview
Across both chains, the BRZ/USDC pools progressed through the same broad lifecycle stages:
- Deployment and resting liquidity
- Incentivised availability
- Quiet readiness
- Organic execution emergence
- FX sensitivity and price discovery
- Aggregator confirmation and late-stage amplification
The timing — and the degree — of execution differed meaningfully between chains.
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Part I — The BRZ/USDC Pool on Polygon
Pool Context
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Phase One: Launch and Incentivised Availability
Following deployment, the Polygon BRZ/USDC pool entered an availability phase. Liquidity was present, supported through ecosystem incentive programs and some of the dedicated Stabull community LP’s who helped add small amounts of initial liquidity to get things going, but execution remained sparse.
Trades arrived irregularly, often separated by long gaps, with little directional structure. The pool was live and functional, but not yet required by the surrounding execution environment.
This phase reflects a common but often misunderstood reality in DeFi: deployment a pool does not equal immediate adoption, there is a lag in how long it takes the DeFi participants to become aware of the pools existence.
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Phase Two: Quiet Readiness
As incentive pressure eased, liquidity compressed rather than exiting entirely. TVL peaked in the mid-single-digit thousands before settling into a lower, stable operating band.
Importantly, this normalisation occurred before meaningful execution emerged and before aggregator routing was live. Pricing remained stable, depth remained usable, and the pool continued to function as ready infrastructure.
This is the stage most dashboards misinterpret as stagnation.
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Phase Three: Organic Execution Emergence
Even in the absence of aggregator support, sporadic but directional execution began to appear. Swaps clustered briefly, initiator sets narrowed, and trades arrived in short runs rather than isolated noise.
This behaviour reflects organic use — likely inventory management or solver-driven routing operating without explicit aggregator discovery. Execution remained intermittent, but it was purposeful.
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Phase Four: FX Sensitivity Appears Late
For most of the Polygon pool’s lifecycle, BRZ/USDC pricing remained largely insensitive to short-term movements in the broader USD/BRL market. Implied FX in swaps was stable across days, reflecting liquidity anchoring rather than active price discovery.
Only late in the observation window do early signs of FX sensitivity begin to appear. Even then, the effect remains muted, consistent with the pool’s role as episodic infrastructure rather than a primary execution venue.
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Phase Five: Aggregator Confirmation
Aggregator routing on Polygon became available only in the final days of the period analysed, and made itself known with various trades involving protocols including Li.fi, Uniswap, Kyberswap, Meshswap, SushiSwap among others, enabling these pools to participate in a wide variety of DeFi trades.
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Part II — The BRZ/USDC Pool on Base
Pool Context
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Phase One: Launch and Availability
The Base BRZ/USDC pool was deployed later, into a denser execution environment with greater solver and routing activity.
Even during early availability, trades arrived with shorter spacing and higher initiator concentration than on Polygon — early indicators of programmatic interaction.
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Phase Two: Liquidity Formation and Normalisation
Liquidity on Base built more aggressively before compressing into a stable operating band. Normalisation occurred before sustained execution emerged, leaving a pool that was appropriately sized for real demand rather than speculative expectations.
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Phase Three: Organic Execution Emergence
In early January, execution on Base shifted meaningfully.
Swaps began to cluster tightly in time, initiator sets narrowed significantly, and directional runs emerged. These patterns are consistent with solver-driven execution responding to genuine market need rather than UI-led activity.
This marks the transition from availability to execution.
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Phase Four: FX Sensitivity and Price Discovery
One of the clearest signals that BRZ/USDC on Base had become a genuine FX corridor was a change in price behaviour.
Early swaps show little sensitivity to day-to-day movements in the broader USD/BRL market. Through much of December, implied FX in swaps remained stable even as the macro rate moved.
In early January, this began to change. As execution became repeatable and directional, implied FX in BRZ/USDC swaps started to drift in the same direction as day-to-day movements in the broader USD/BRL market. The effect was subtle, but consistent.
Price discovery appeared only once the pool was being used as execution infrastructure rather than merely existing as available liquidity.
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Phase Five: Aggregator Confirmation and Amplification
Aggregator routing on Base became active after execution patterns were already established. Discovery acted as an amplifier rather than a trigger, increasing surface area for a venue that had already proven itself operationally sound, and regularly utilised in trades alongside Morpho, KyberSwap and Uniswap, among others.
We’re grateful to the OpenOcean team for their support across both deployments, enabling Stabull pools to be surfaced organically within broader DeFi execution paths.
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Capital Efficiency and Turnover
With comparable protocol design across chains, differences in capital efficiency are revealing.
On Base, BRZ liquidity was reused repeatedly during active windows, with capital turning over multiple times without requiring additional depth. On Polygon, similar patterns are now occurring as the pools have built awareness within DeFi.
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Verifiability and Participation
All activity discussed here is fully verifiable on-chain:
Liquidity can be added or removed at any time via the Stabull interface and both pools have been included in ecosystem incentive programs supporting liquidity availability at https://app.merkl.xyz/protocols/stabull which provides STABUL token rewards, in addition to swap generated fee yield paid by every swap through the pools in USDC and BRZ.
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Closing Thought
BRZ liquidity on Stabull did not emerge through hype or emissions alone.
Across both Polygon and Base, the pools progressed through the same lifecycle — launch, availability, readiness, execution, and finally price discovery. What differed was where and when those stages manifested.
On Base, BRZ/USDC evolved into an execution venue incorporating real-world FX movement that is regularly being utilised by a cross section of DeFi actors.
On Polygon, it remained infrastructure — stable, ready, and episodically used, until it connected to the DeFI pipework and is now supporting regular programmatic trading.
That distinction emerged organically, without intervention, and with BRZ being one of the top non-USD stablecoins, it will be interesting to see how things will evolve as we add more regional stablecoins from South America.
About the Author
Jamie McCormick is Co-Chief Marketing Officer at Stabull Finance, where he has been working for over two years on positioning the protocol within the evolving DeFi ecosystem.
He is also the founder of Bitcoin Marketing Team, established in 2014 and recognised as Europe’s oldest specialist crypto marketing agency. Over the past decade, the agency has worked with a wide range of projects across the digital asset and Web3 landscape.
Jamie first became involved in crypto in 2013 and has a long-standing interest in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Over the last two years, his focus has increasingly shifted toward understanding the mechanics of decentralised finance, particularly how on-chain infrastructure is used in practice rather than in theory.
Source: https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/oracle-anchored-brl-liquidity-in-practice
