Binance Backs $32 Million Funding for Unicorn Founder's Crypto Stablecoin

Announced Tuesday, the founder behind a $1.4 billion startup unicorn called TMON is revealing he has raised a $32 million seed round to build a stablecoin called Terra.

While a number of startups have deployed stablecoins - cryptocurrencies engineered to track the price of another asset, usually fiat currency - Terra comes with a notable addition: an existing user base.

Created by Korean entrepreneurs Danial Shin, who founded and chairs TMON, one of the top e-commerce websites in South Korea, the Terra project is launching with a significant number of partners that already reach 40 million customers.

Those partners, who will together form the Terra Alliance, a group of e-commerce sites that are interested in incorporating the stablecoin into their business, include Woowa Brothers, Qoo10, Carousell, Pomelo and TIKI. According to a spokesperson for the project, those companies, combined, take in $25 billion in sales.

"We've banded together all the e-commerce platforms in Asia that are not called Alibaba or Amazon to push Terra into the hands of many many people," Shin told CoinDesk.

"We are pleased to support Terra, which sets itself apart from most other blockchain projects with its established and immediate go-to-market strategy," said Polychain's Karthik Raju in a statement.

"While we see many stablecoins coming out, Terra's journey is especially meaningful as they are designing one of the few price-stable protocols with existing, working and strong go-to-market strategy and usage."

As terra's use grows, it will algorithmically issue new tokens.

For example, if the protocol has issued a new lot of terra, merchants might be able consumers a 10 percent discount on purchases made with the token - that is until the new supply runs out.

What Terra still needs is a host blockchain - a big question for many projects today.