MEXC COO Explains Rising $USDT Demand and 20% APR Strategy

Outset

In an exclusive interview session, we sat with Vugar Usi, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of MEXC to discuss the the sharp rise in demand for stablecoins such as Tether ($USDT). We also addressed the growing traction of high-yield savings products across exchanges. While speaking to BlockchainReporter, Usi disclosed the MEXC’s strategy of offering up to 20% APR on USDT flexible savings.

Vugar Usi also shared the mechanics behind ultra-high short-term promotional yields, the sustainability of elevated APR campaigns, and the role of tokenized gold and silver in portfolio diversification. What’s more, he also explained that how zero-interest crypto-backed loans are designed to unlock liquidity for long-term holders while facilitating the traders to manage liquidation risks during volatile market cycles.

Interview Section

What is the driving force behind the spike in Demand for $USDT and other high-yield stablecoin products?

First, stablecoins have become the default “dollar rail” for a huge chunk of global crypto activity. They’re used as the bridge asset for trading, transfers between venues, and moving risk off volatile tokens without exiting the market. Issuance growth has been driven heavily by trading demand, with expanding use in cross-border payments as well.

In many markets, the demand is simply access to dollars that move like software. Stablecoins can be especially attractive in places with high inflation, capital controls, or limited access to dollar accounts and payment networks. 

There’s a strong stablecoin appetite across large African economies, tied to everyday monetary realities and cross-border frictions.

Another driving force is that USDT specifically keeps winning on distribution and liquidity. It dominates stablecoin transaction volume at enormous scale, which reinforces its role as the market’s “common settlement language.”

And finally, high-yield stablecoin products spike when uncertainty and impatience meet. Volatile markets push people toward stable units; at the same time, they still want their capital to work. That’s the backdrop for exchange-earn products that emphasize yield plus optionality.

What makes MEXC capable of delivering high APRs like 20% while efficiently maintaining risk controls and liquidity?

The 20% APR on USDT flexible savings is, at its core, a strategic reinvestment back into our global user base – a deliberate choice to share platform profits directly with our users, particularly during periods of heightened market volatility. Rather than retaining those gains internally, we channel them through targeted interest subsidies to help users achieve stable, meaningful asset growth. It’s less a product feature and more a reflection of how we think about the relationship between platform success and user prosperity.

Do these elevated rates denote a long-term yield offering shift or just a provisional promotional strategy?

The answer is both – and the distinction matters. At the core of MEXC Earn is a long-term commitment: sustaining industry-leading baseline yields through continuous optimization of our capital efficiency. That is the constant. Layered above it are time-bound, high-yield campaigns tied to specific market cycles, new token launches, or as a reward for our most loyal users.

These two layers don’t compete; they reinforce each other. The baseline builds the credibility a serious financial platform demands; the promotional windows give new users an immediately rewarding first experience, and existing users a defined moment to capture returns well above the norm.

What do ultra-high APRs like 400%-600% over 2-3 day products mean for users?

These short-duration, ultra-high-APR products are essentially exclusive, time-limited incentives – a “welcome bonus” designed to give new users an immediate, tangible experience of the platform’s value proposition. In practical terms, they represent an exceptionally high short-term capital utilization rate.

Picture this: during a major token listing or a platform-exclusive campaign, a user deploys idle capital for no more than two to three days, and walks away with a compelling, concrete return. No speculation, no extended lock-up, no complexity. It is MEXC‘s way of letting the product speak for itself: lowering the barrier to entry not through promises, but through a first experience that is immediately and demonstrably rewarding.

How are flexible savings initiatives dominating the market in comparison with conventional passive-income strategies such as CeFi lending or staking?

Flexible savings has a very simple promise: keep liquidity and still earn. A lot of older passive-income mechanics asked users to accept one or more trade-offs like lock-ups, limited redemptions, opaque counterparty chains, or operational complexity. Flexible savings flips the priority order: instant access first, yield second, and a product experience that has to feel like cash management. That product design lines up with how people actually behave during choppy cycles.

They want to be able to redeploy capital quickly, manage margin needs, or step back to safety without waiting for an unlock window. It’s one reason earning inside the account you already use has traction, including auto-earn mechanics that reduce manual steps for holders.

The February 2026 MEXC Earn update is explicitly built around that liquidity-first preference. USDT Flexible Savings was raised to up to 20% APR for the first tier, with higher-tier limits and no lock-up, plus unrestricted withdrawals.

When you combine that with adjacent “hold and earn” options (auto-earn for spot holders, or earn for futures balances), the value proposition becomes cohesive. It is to keep your positioning simple, keep access to funds, and choose your risk profile.

What mechanisms are implemented to ensure the capital security in the “capital-protected” options of MEXC Earn?

Capital protection is a non-negotiable. MEXC operates a robust security reserve framework designed to serve as the last line of defense, ensuring that all principal commitments to Earn users are honored without exception. This is underpinned by our dedicated $100 million Guardian Fund and a reserve ratio consistently maintained above 100%, providing full, real-time backing of user assets. These aren’t aspirational targets, they’re operating standards.

How do silver ($SLVON), gold ($XAUT), and other tokenized commodities serve in crypto portfolio diversification?

Tokenized commodities do two jobs. They add a different return driver to a crypto-native portfolio, and they do it in a format that matches crypto’s operating hours.

Gold, in particular, has a long history as a defensive allocation, and tokenization makes it easier to hold, transfer, or post as collateral in smaller sizes and with faster settlement. The World Gold Council has been explicit about the “digital layer” improving market access and enabling more frictionless trading and collateralization concepts.

That’s showing up in market activity. There’s fast growth in tokenized gold. Sophisticated users should apply a due-diligence lens with attention to investor protections, custody, redemption rights, and regulatory clarity.

From the issuer side, token specs matter. Tether Gold’s FAQ frames XAU₮ as representing ownership of one fine troy ounce of gold on a specific bar. Paxos, in turn, describes PAXG as allocated gold with monthly reporting plus a regulated-institution framing.

Silver-token products can play a similar diversification role, with a different volatility profile and sometimes a closer link to industrial-cycle narratives than gold. In a portfolio context, that difference can be useful. You’re adding exposures that don’t move on the exact same signals as majors like BTC and ETH, and you’re doing it without leaving the crypto toolset.

For MEXC Earn specifically, the idea is to let users express that diversification choice through earning wrappers as well. The limited-time fixed-savings promos highlighted in the release (e.g., tokenized gold and silver products for new users) are framed as part of a spectrum that ranges from capital-protected savings to liquidity tools. 

What is the objective behind MEXC’s zero-interest loans backed by crypto during the promotional campaign?

The primary objective is to fundamentally unlock the latent liquidity sitting within users’ existing asset portfolios. A significant portion of our user base are committed long-term holders, they have strong conviction in their core positions and have no intention of selling. In the current market environment, our zero-interest loan campaign gives these users access to free liquidity without requiring them to liquidate a single asset.

That capital can then be deployed for strategic dip-buying or day-to-day financial flexibility. For the platform, it breathes velocity into capital that would otherwise sit dormant. For users, it dissolves what has long been an unavoidable trade-off in crypto – the choice between holding for appreciation and accessing liquidity. With MEXC’s zero-interest loans, they no longer have to choose.

How do users get help from crypto-backed loans to prevent liquidation while also maintaining significant market exposure?

This is perhaps the most powerful real-world application of our lending product, and one that speaks directly to the realities of trading in a volatile market. Imagine a user whose leveraged position is creeping toward forced liquidation, yet their conviction in the trade remains unshaken.

Rather than capitulating, they pledge their long-held spot assets – BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP – borrow USDT or USDC against them, and channel that liquidity straight into their margin account, pulling the liquidation threshold back to safety. The position survives. The exposure is preserved. And the pledged assets, untouched, continue to appreciate in the background. It converts crisis into opportunity.

What is MEXC’s plan to transform the Earn network amid intensifying stablecoin yield competition across exchanges?

Our response to intensifying competition is a deliberate pivot, from competing on a single interest rate variable to building a comprehensive wealth management gateway. That means three things in practice:

Structural product innovation: beyond our highly competitive flexible and fixed-term savings, we will continue expanding our structured product suite to address the full spectrum of user risk appetites.

Deep ecosystem integration: we’re embedding stablecoin savings directly into MEXC’s token listing ecosystem and VIP framework, so that assets held in Earn don’t just generate yield — they also serve as the key that unlocks priority access to new project airdrops and exclusive listing benefits. Your stablecoin becomes a “golden shovel” in the next cycle.

Personalized tiered rate structures: leveraging behavioral data and advanced analytics, we will move toward customized yield optimization for users at every level of capital deployment and platform engagement; because a one-size-fits-all rate structure leaves value on the table for everyone.

Concluding Remarks

Inshort, the whole discussion highlighted the MEXC’s strategy of combining high-yield incentives with liquidity flexibility and capital protection along with expanding into tokenized commodities and crypto-backed lending solutions. As stablecoin adoption is rapidly continue to grow at the global level, MEXC appears focused on transforming its Earn ecosystem into a broader wealth management gateway. In addition to that, MEXC exchange is balancing promotional yield campaigns with long-term sustainability, security reserves, and ecosystem-driven user benefits.