Carbon-12 Labs
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Carbon-12 Labs was a cryptocurrency startup (carbon.money) providing crypto payment solutions for businesses. Co-founded by Connor Lin and Sam Trautwein with Gavin Mai as chief product officer, it built a price-stable cryptocurrency, CarbonUSD (CUSD) — a dollar-pegged stablecoin launched in September 2018 — and expanded it across Ethereum, EOS, TRON and Binance chains. It also offered a fiat on/off-ramp ('Carbon Fiber') letting users buy crypto with credit cards, debit cards and PayPal, plus a developer portal with APIs for exchanges, dApps and wallets.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Seed round
Raised a $2 million seed round from General Catalyst, Digital Currency Group, FirstMark Capital, Plug and Play Ventures and The Fund, disclosed to CoinDesk in April 2018.
- CarbonUSD launched
Launched CarbonUSD, a compliant dollar-pegged stablecoin on Ethereum in September 2018, backed one-to-one by USD at partner bank Prime Trust; became the first stablecoin on EOS in November 2018.
- Expansion
Expanded CUSD to TRON and Binance chains, got listed on Newdex, enabled credit-card purchases of TRON-based currencies, and launched a developer portal for its fiat on/off-ramp APIs.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.