Apyx’s apxUSD stablecoin slipped to $0.93 on June 4, a roughly 7% depeg that coincided with Bitcoin dropping below $63,000 in a broader market selloff. The protocol was quick to frame the event not as a failure but as an expected consequence of its unconventional collateralization model, which relies on variable-rate preferred shares rather than traditional fiat reserves.
Here’s the thing: most stablecoins are backed by dollars sitting in bank accounts or US Treasuries. apxUSD is backed primarily by STRC preferred shares from Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy. That makes apxUSD’s price behavior fundamentally different from something like USDC or USDT, and the brief depeg illustrated exactly how.
What actually happened
Apyx describes itself as the first Dividend-Backed Stablecoin protocol, or DBS. In plain English: it takes dividend-paying preferred shares from public markets and uses them as collateral to mint stablecoins on-chain. The dividends those shares generate flow into the protocol’s ecosystem, theoretically providing a sustainable yield layer that pure fiat-backed competitors can’t match.
The protocol reports maintaining an overcollateralization rate of approximately 104%. That means for every dollar of apxUSD in circulation, there’s roughly $1.04 worth of collateral sitting behind it. That buffer, combined with dividend income and cash/Treasury reserves, is designed to absorb exactly the kind of shock that occurred on June 4.
STRC preferred shares carry a par value of $100. Since their introduction in August 2025, they’ve traded below that par value four times, recovering each time.
As of March 2026, Apyx held approximately 288,888 STRC shares valued at around $29 million, making it the protocol’s largest external holding by a significant margin.
The dividend-backed model, explained
Traditional fiat-backed stablecoins like USDC maintain their peg because a dollar in a bank account is always worth a dollar. apxUSD’s collateral, by contrast, fluctuates with market conditions. The protocol compensates for this with its overcollateralization buffer and by integrating dividend mechanisms that reduce reliance on pure spot prices when calculating collateral health.
Apyx operates within Morpho markets, a lending protocol where its built-in buffers are designed to prevent cascading liquidations during volatility spikes. Rather than marking collateral purely to market in real time, the system incorporates dividend yield adjustments and cash reserves to smooth out temporary price dislocations.
The protocol also runs a yield-bearing counterpart called apyUSD, which captures some of the dividend income generated by the underlying collateral. Together, the two tokens form Apyx’s core product suite, with apxUSD serving as the stable unit and apyUSD as the yield vehicle.
apxUSD became available for trading on Kraken in April 2026, giving it exchange-level liquidity that many newer stablecoin projects lack.
What this means for investors
Circle’s USDC briefly traded at $0.87 during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023, and it was treated as a genuine crisis. A 7% depeg for apxUSD, by contrast, gets framed by its own protocol as expected behavior.
The 104% overcollateralization rate provides a thin margin of safety compared to some competitors. MakerDAO’s DAI, for instance, has historically maintained overcollateralization ratios well above 150%. Apyx’s lower buffer means less room for error during severe drawdowns, though the protocol argues its dividend income and Treasury reserves partially compensate for the tighter ratio.
Strategy’s preferred shares are tied to a company that holds massive Bitcoin positions. When Bitcoin drops, STRC tends to follow, which means apxUSD’s collateral is correlated with the very market it’s supposed to provide stability within.