Seven dollars, five promises
Every token here is called a dollar stablecoin, and the word hides more than it explains. Some are issued under a US supervisor, one offshore, one by a Hong Kong trust, two carry a consumer or political brand, one is backed by a hedged crypto position, not dollars. The useful question is not "is it a dollar" but "who owes me a dollar, under what rules, and who can stop it moving".
The map
| Token | Issuer | Backing | Regulator or charter | Chains | Freeze | Retail redemption | Typical job |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT | Tether | Short Treasuries plus bitcoin, gold and secured loans; quarterly attestations | No US charter; El Salvador licence since 2025 | Tron, Ethereum, TON, Solana, others | Yes | No; verified customers above a high minimum | Settlement outside the US, exchange quote |
| USDC | Circle | Bank cash and short Treasuries in a segregated fund; monthly attestations | US state licences; MiCA e-money licence; GENIUS-aligned | Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, others | Yes | No; Circle Mint is for verified businesses | DeFi collateral, US-facing payments |
| USDe | Ethena | Synthetic: crypto collateral hedged with short perpetuals | None | Ethereum, bridged elsewhere | Not in the USDe contract; sUSDe has a restriction role | No; approved minters only, everyone else uses a DEX | Yield through sUSDe |
| USD1 | World Liberty Financial | Short Treasuries, deposits, cash equivalents; custody at BitGo | No own charter; regulated custodian | BNB Chain, Ethereum | Assume yes; issuer-administered contract | No; institutional channels | BNB Chain DeFi, institutional deals |
| PYUSD | PayPal, issued by Paxos | Deposits, short Treasuries and repo at Paxos Trust; monthly attestations | NYDFS (Paxos Trust) | Ethereum, Solana; more added in 2025 | Yes | Only for US PayPal and Venmo users, in the app | PayPal payments, Solana DeFi |
| RLUSD | Ripple | Deposits, short Treasuries, cash equivalents; monthly attestations | NYDFS trust charter | XRP Ledger, Ethereum | Yes | No; institutional partners | XRPL DEX, payments |
| FDUSD | First Digital | Cash and cash equivalents held in trust | Hong Kong trust; local licensing regime since August 2025 | Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, Sui | Yes | No; verified institutional clients | Fee-free spot pairs, BNB Chain |
What "backed" means in each case
Fiat-reserve tokens (USDT, USDC, USD1, PYUSD, RLUSD, FDUSD) work the same way on paper: the issuer holds dollars and dollar-like assets and promises to redeem one token for one dollar. The differences lie on three axes.
- What is in the reserve. Bank deposits and Treasury bills can be sold in a day. Bitcoin, gold and loans, which Tether reports alongside its Treasuries, may not be worth a dollar on the day of a run.
- Who watches. A New York trust charter (Paxos for PYUSD, Ripple's subsidiary for RLUSD) means monthly attestations and a supervisor who can order a freeze or a wind-down. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, sets a federal standard for US payment stablecoins: cash and short Treasuries as reserves, monthly disclosure, freeze on a lawful order. Its rules are being phased in; check which issuers are licensed under it.
- Whose balance sheet. A reserve in a bankruptcy-remote trust survives the issuer's failure; one on the issuer's own balance sheet becomes part of its estate.
USDe is a different object with no dollar behind it. Ethena holds ETH, staked ETH and BTC and shorts the same amount in perpetual futures, so gains on one side cancel losses on the other. The value stays near a dollar while the hedge holds and the venues holding the collateral stay solvent: a hedged trade with a token on top.
Freeze and blacklist: what actually happens
Every fiat-backed token in the table lets the issuer freeze an address, and every issuer asked has used it: court orders, law-enforcement requests, exchange hacks. On Ethereum-type chains it is a contract blacklist; on XRPL the issuer freezes the trust line. A frozen balance is still visible on-chain and cannot move; the issuer, not the chain, decides what happens next.
USDe is the exception at the token level: its contract has no blacklist, while sUSDe has a role that can restrict an address, and Ethena controls who may mint or redeem. The rule for a self-custody holder is the same everywhere: fresh addresses, no funds you cannot explain, no single issuer for most of your savings.
Which one for which job
- Paying people and funding exchanges outside the US: USDT on Tron. Widest acceptance, low fees, one confirmation on a deposit.
- Ethereum DeFi and counterparties wanting a US-regulated issuer: USDC.
- Yield, accepting trading-strategy risk instead of bank risk: sUSDe; plain USDe earns nothing.
- XRP Ledger payments and its DEX: RLUSD.
- PayPal or Venmo on the other side: PYUSD.
- BNB Chain: USD1 or FDUSD, whichever your venue quotes.
In the EU, MiCA led major exchanges to delist USDT for EU customers by the end of March 2025; USDC holds an e-money licence there. What your counterparties accept matters more than whose reserve is best.
Moving between them without an account
USDT and USDC have pair pages: USDT TRC-20 to USDC ERC-20, USDC ERC-20 to USDT TRC-20, USDT ERC-20 to USDT TRC-20. USDe, USD1, PYUSD, RLUSD and FDUSD are available in the swap form on the homepage; pick token and network there.
- Choose the pair, enter the amount and your destination address, optionally a refund address, and click Swap now. You get a unique deposit address and a status page, no login.
- Send exactly the shown amount. The floating rate locks at the required confirmations: one for USDT TRC-20, fifteen for ERC-20, two for XRPL, one for Solana.
- The payout arrives at your address. The cost is your sending fee plus the spread and payout fee in the quote; the pair page shows the all-in cost against the CoinGecko rate.
Mistakes to avoid
- Treating a yield-bearing token as cash. sUSDe can lose value in a bad funding period.
- Sending on a chain the recipient does not support. PYUSD on Solana and on Ethereum are different assets to an exchange.
- Expecting to redeem with the issuer. Only PYUSD has a retail exit, inside PayPal.
USDT (TRC-20) → USDC (ERC-20)
USDC (ERC-20) → USDT (TRC-20)