Perena

Perena is a Solana protocol that issues USD STAR (USD*), a yield-bearing digital dollar whose price rises as a diversified portfolio of hedged trading, secured lending and tokenized real-world asset positions earns income. Around USD* it has built tranched versions of the same portfolio, yield-bearing wrappers for SOL, BTC, gold and Zcash, and an automated borrowing product called Smart Borrow.

From stablecoin AMM to yield vaults

Perena was founded in 2024 by Anna Yuan, previously stablecoin lead at the Solana Foundation. Its first product was Numéraire, a stablecoin automated market maker launched on Solana in late 2024. CoinDesk described the idea as swap pools for up to seven stablecoins, similar to Curve's 3pool on Ethereum. Yuan described Perena as "the neutral party that supports stablecoin issuers."

Numéraire used a hub-and-spoke design, according to the Numéraire V1 docs. A central Seed Pool held established stablecoins (USDC, USDT and PYUSD). Growth Pools paired the pool's LP token, the original USD*, 50/50 with newer partner stablecoins. Swaps between a partner stablecoin and the hub assets routed through two hops, which kept the Seed Pool apart from partner-token risk. Perena now labels Numéraire "legacy protocol documentation". The protocol is still on mainnet but has been superseded by Perena Vault V2, and the current USD* uses a different mint from the original LP token.

How USD* works today

The USD* docs say users mint USD* by depositing accepted tokens such as USDC and can redeem it for USDC. There is no staking or claiming. Yield compounds into the token's redemption price, and an internal accounting model tracks the portfolio's net asset value. Arbitrage keeps the market price in line: if USD* trades at a premium, traders can mint and sell, and at a discount they can buy and burn.

According to the Perena website, the portfolio has three target sleeves:

• Delta-neutral hedged positions (50–70%): funding and basis income from market-neutral trading.
• Secured borrow-lend positions (10–20%).
• Stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (5–10%), held partly as a liquidity buffer.

The docs also include an investment policy with concentration limits, a liquidity waterfall, a strategy-approval process and a counterparty overview. A public transparency dashboard shows where funds are allocated.

In a September 2026 review, Traders Guild used Perena's price API to track USD* from $1.072399 to $1.095019 over the 90 days to September 14. That is a 2.11% return, or about 8.83% annualized. The same snapshot put roughly 82% of allocations with three venues: Midpoint, Nest and TreasuryPlus. The review also found about $1.28 million in instant-redemption liquidity against a standard USD* supply of about $10 million. Large exits could therefore depend on redemption queues or gating.

Vault V2 and tranching

In August 2026 Perena moved USD* onto Perena Vault V2. This framework issues several claims against one portfolio and splits gains and losses between them with a "deterministic waterfall" enforced on-chain. Three products share the portfolio:

• USD*: a pro-rata claim on the portfolio's yield.
• USD* Protected (USD*P): the senior, capital-preserving layer.
• USD* Junior (USD*J): the first-loss layer. It absorbs losses before other holders in exchange for higher returns.

Perena's August 2026 update said no existing tokens were deprecated in the migration. It gave USD*J rates as falling from 18% to 16%, while USD* rose toward 10% as yield previously redirected to the junior tranche returned to it. Vault V2 is also sold as vault-as-a-service ("Build with Perena"). Outside curators can issue senior and junior claims against their own strategies, and Perena provides NAV-based valuation, concentration limits and operational controls. Perena named Bilira as its first third-party curator.

Yield-bearing risk assets

Working with Kestrel, Perena launched SOL* and BTC* in August 2026, then GOLD* and ZEC* in September. Per the product docs, the user deposits the underlying asset, which serves as collateral. The strategy borrows against it and deploys the capital into delta-neutral carry trades. Net gains raise the redemption value, so each SOL* redeems for more SOL over time. BTC* is backed by cbBTC, and GOLD* is minted from PAXG, with liquidity on [[PROJECT:303]] according to Perena's launch post. SOL* aims to beat liquid staking tokens. The docs warn that "extra yield is not guaranteed," and that borrowing costs, fees and losses can reduce or reverse returns. Redemptions settle immediately when liquidity is available and otherwise queue while positions unwind.

Smart Borrow and integrations

Perena Smart Borrow is an automated credit line built with design partner Hobba. Users post SOL or cbBTC and borrow USDC through Jupiter Lend or Kamino Lend, up to a 50% loan-to-value ratio. The automation can borrow more against unused capacity and deploy it into higher-yielding vaults, including USD*, to pay the loan down over time.

USD* is also available through [[PROJECT:219]]'s Offerbook, launched in August 2026. There, holders can loop USD* with fixed-rate borrowing that has no price-based liquidations.

Security and audits

Perena's security page links two audit reports and says all relevant auditor findings were fixed before deployment, but it does not name the auditors. Traders Guild cites a Certora review of Vault V2 from July 2026 that found 36 issues. Of those, 28 were fixed, including both critical and both high-severity findings. Perena has no formal bug bounty with fixed reward tiers but says it may reward critical or high-severity disclosures at its discretion.

Funding and token

Perena raised a pre-seed round of about $3 million in December 2024, led by Borderless Capital. Binance Labs, Anagram, Maelstrom, SevenX Ventures and others also took part (PANews). A further community-and-investor round in July 2025 included Susquehanna, Hermeneutic Investments and Crypto Native Capital (AInvest). Perena has no token. In August 2026 Yuan said a token launch was not on the roadmap "in the foreseeable future."