First Digital USD (FDUSD) Reseña

What is FDUSD? The short answer

What is FDUSD? First Digital USD is a dollar stablecoin issued by FD121 (BVI) Limited, part of the Hong Kong-based First Digital group, and backed by US Treasury bills and cash held by a related Hong Kong trust company for the issuer. It grew mainly on Binance and peaked above $4 billion in April 2024. On 16 October 2026 only 315.9 million FDUSD remained, according to the issuer's supply data.

That decline is the story of FDUSD. The coin briefly lost its peg in April 2025 after Tron founder Justin Sun publicly accused its custodian of insolvency, Binance has since shifted its savings promotions to the USD1 stablecoin, and First Digital holds no stablecoin licence in Hong Kong, the EU or the US. First Digital says FDUSD is not intended for US persons. This page explains what still backs it and who it is for.

Who issues FDUSD?

FD121 (BVI) Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that trades as First Digital Labs, has issued FDUSD since 1 August 2025. Before that the issuer was FD121 Limited in Hong Kong; the switch took effect the same day Hong Kong's new stablecoin law came into force, though First Digital did not link the two. The reserves are held by First Digital Trust Limited, a Hong Kong trust company with a trust or company service provider licence, TC006771.

The parent, First Digital Group Limited, was incorporated in Gibraltar in 2022. On 6 October 2026 it announced a definitive agreement to go public by merging with a Nasdaq-listed blank-cheque company, CSLM Digital Asset Acquisition Corp III, at a $250 million pre-money equity value, with closing expected in the first half of 2027, according to the joint release filed with the SEC. FD121 itself states that it "is not a trust company" and is "not a bank".

What backs FDUSD?

Mostly short-dated US Treasury bills, plus cash and fixed deposits, according to monthly attestations. The newest report we could retrieve covers 28 February 2026. First Digital's website sits behind a bot check, so later reports, which likely exist, could not be fetched for this review.

The February 2026 report was signed on 13 March 2026 by AOGB CPA Limited, a Hong Kong firm, under the ISAE 3000 standard with limited assurance, a lighter check than the reasonable-assurance engagements behind USDC and USDT reports. The excess over circulation was about $1.3 million, or 0.35%.

First Digital Trust holds the reserve accounts as custodian, with further accounts at financial institutions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg, Malta, the US, the UK, Bahrain, Liechtenstein and Georgia; every institution among them that S&P rates has a short-term rating of at least A-2.

The firm doing the checking has changed often. Prescient Assurance signed reports until February 2025, Prism Hong Kong from March to December 2025, and AOGB CPA from January 2026. Frequent changes of attestation firm are not proof of a problem, but they make year-on-year comparison harder. The depth of checking also dropped. Prescient's reports were examinations under AICPA standards, which give reasonable assurance; every report from March 2025 on, starting with one signed days after the April 2025 depeg, gives only limited assurance.

Is FDUSD safe?

On the attested figures the reserves were adequate and conservative at the last check we could see, but FDUSD carries more counterparty and access risk than the large US-regulated coins. The main points:

• Verification gap. The newest reserve report we could verify is seven months old, because the issuer's site blocks automated access; the issuer says it publishes reports monthly.
• Limited assurance. The attestations give limited, not reasonable, assurance.
• Litigation around the custodian. First Digital Trust is a defendant in a Hong Kong lawsuit brought in 2023 by Techteryx, the owner of the TrueUSD stablecoin, over $456 million of TUSD reserves that Techteryx alleges were diverted to a Dubai firm. FDT says it acted on Techteryx's instructions. No judgment on the merits has been found. A Dubai court has frozen up to $456 million of that firm's assets; FDT is not a party to the Dubai case.
• Concentration. Binance carried about 79% of FDUSD's tracked trading volume on 16 October 2026, so the coin's liquidity depends heavily on one exchange.
• Freeze power. The token contract lets the owner freeze accounts and pause transfers, per the Quantstamp audit of December 2025.

On the positive side, the contracts have recent audits from Quantstamp and PeckShield, the reserve mix is plain Treasuries and cash, and FDUSD has traded within about a cent of $1 since mid-April 2025.

Why did FDUSD depeg in April 2025?

On 2 April 2025 Justin Sun posted that First Digital Trust was "effectively insolvent" and unable to meet redemptions. FDUSD fell to about $0.87 against USDT and $0.76 against USDC on Binance that day before recovering to between $0.96 and $0.98, CoinDesk reported. First Digital called the claims false, said every dollar backing FDUSD was accounted for in US Treasury bills, and kept processing redemptions, about $25.8 million in the first days, per Cointelegraph. By 9 April the peg had virtually recovered.

The damage showed in supply. FDUSD went from 2.59 billion at the end of March 2025 to 1.48 billion a month later, then kept shrinking. First Digital Trust filed a defamation writ against Sun in Hong Kong on 3 April 2025, and Sun has kept up his allegations, including a bounty campaign in March 2026. All of these remain allegations; we found no court finding against First Digital.

How does FDUSD relate to Binance?

Binance is where FDUSD trades, and Binance once ran zero-fee trading promotions on its main FDUSD pairs. That relationship has faded. Binance restored taker fees on the seven headline FDUSD pairs from 29 January 2026, per its announcement, and on 16 October 2026 only 35 FDUSD spot pairs were trading out of 201 ever listed.

Binance's savings promotions moved to the USD1 stablecoin from December 2025. Binance had already removed FDUSD spot pairs for users in the European Economic Area on 31 March 2025 because FDUSD is not authorised under MiCA.

Can you redeem FDUSD for dollars?

Only if you are an institution with an FD121 account in a supported country. First Digital Labs "does not sell tokens directly to retail customers", and minting and redemption "are not offered to persons located in the United States", according to the issuer's transparency page. The issuer advertises zero-fee minting and redemption "as long as you mint more than you redeem", and its terms let it suspend or limit redemptions in stress, for example during "significant sale requests or market volatility".

Everyone else sells FDUSD on an exchange or a decentralised pool. On 16 October 2026 FDUSD traded at about $0.998 on CoinGecko, a small discount.

Is FDUSD regulated?

Not as a stablecoin anywhere we checked:

• Hong Kong. Hong Kong's stablecoin law took effect on 1 August 2025. The HKMA register lists only Anchorpoint Financial and HSBC, both licensed on 10 April 2026, and the HKMA says offering an unlicensed fiat-referenced stablecoin to retail investors in Hong Kong is illegal. HashKey Exchange's FDUSD pairs, launched on 1 September 2026, are for professional investors only.
• European Union. No First Digital entity appears on ESMA's MiCA register.
• Abu Dhabi. The group's investor presentation of 7 October 2026 lists an application for an ADGM fiat-referenced token licence as still pending.
• United States. FD121 is a foreign issuer with no GENIUS Act status, and FDUSD is not offered to US persons. From 18 July 2028 US platforms may only offer payment stablecoins from permitted issuers or recognised foreign issuers, under the GENIUS Act. The group says it intends to seek US authorisation.
• United Kingdom. First Digital claims no UK authorisation, and the FCA register could not be checked for this review.

Which blockchains is FDUSD on?

FDUSD is issued natively on six networks, but four hold almost all of it. DefiLlama counted, on 16 October 2026:

FDUSD vs USDC and USDT

FDUSD's reserve mix looks more like USDC's than USDT's, but nearly everything else is weaker: a far smaller and shrinking supply, limited-assurance attestations, no stablecoin licence in any major market, a custodian caught up in litigation, and liquidity concentrated on one exchange. Unless you trade a specific FDUSD pair on Binance, USDC or USDT do the same job with deeper markets. Neither pays yield, and neither does FDUSD.

How is FDUSD taxed in the US?

FDUSD is not offered to US persons, but if you hold it, the IRS treats stablecoins as property, so selling or swapping it is a taxable disposal, per the IRS digital assets page. A sale below $1 can produce a small loss. Our US crypto tax guide covers the general rules.

Who should use FDUSD?

FDUSD makes sense for traders outside the US and EU who need a specific FDUSD pair on Binance and move straight back to another asset. For holding dollars, it is hard to justify in 2026: the issuer has no stablecoin licence, the latest reserve report we could check is from February, and supply has fallen 88% from its March 2025 level. Compare it with the regulated coins on our stablecoin hub, and see what a stablecoin is for the basics.

Sources

1. First Digital Labs, transparency page (Wayback capture 2026-04-16) and supply API, 2026-10-16. Accessed 2026-10-16.
2. AOGB CPA / FD121 (BVI) Limited, reserve attestation as of 2026-02-28, signed 2026-03-13. Accessed 2026-10-16.
3. First Digital Labs, BVI issuance transition, 2025-08-15, and FDD terms. Accessed 2026-10-16.
4. CSLM Digital Asset Acquisition Corp III, 8-K exhibit 99.1, 2026-10-06. Accessed 2026-10-16.
5. Quantstamp, FDUSD audit, December 2025; PeckShield, FDUSD audit, 2025-12-09. Accessed 2026-10-16.
6. CoinDesk, FDUSD drops on Sun allegations, 2025-04-02, and defamation claim, 2025-04-09. Accessed 2026-10-16.
7. Cointelegraph, First Digital redeems $26M after depeg, 2025-04-04. Accessed 2026-10-16.
8. DIFC Courts, Techteryx v Aria Commodities, 2025-09-16. Accessed 2026-10-16.
9. Binance, zero trading fee promotion update, and market data, 2026-10-16; The Block, Binance EEA stablecoin delistings, 2025-03-03. Accessed 2026-10-16.
10. HKMA, register of licensed stablecoin issuers and HKMA Insight on the stablecoin regime, 2025-07-23. Accessed 2026-10-16.
11. CoinGecko, FDUSD market data, and DefiLlama, FDUSD supply and chains, 2026-10-16. Accessed 2026-10-16.
12. ESMA, interim MiCA register; US Government Publishing Office, GENIUS Act; IRS, digital assets. Accessed 2026-10-16.
13. First Digital Group, investor presentation, 2026-10-07, and IR and disclosures page (legal matters). Accessed 2026-10-17.
14. Prescient Assurance, examination report as of 2025-02-28; Prism, limited-assurance report for March 2025, signed 2025-04-11. Accessed 2026-10-17.
15. First Digital Labs, FDUSD product page (Wayback capture 2026-04-16) and FD121 account user agreement. Accessed 2026-10-16.
16. FD121 Limited, reserve report as of 2024-04-30; Prism Hong Kong / FD121 (BVI) Limited, reserve report as of 2025-12-31, signed 2026-01-16. Other monthly reports are linked from the transparency page (source 1). Accessed 2026-10-17.
17. Bloomingbit, HashKey Exchange FDUSD listing for professional investors, 2026-09-01. Accessed 2026-10-17.
18. CryptoTimes, Justin Sun deploys AI detective in First Digital Trust dispute, 2026-03-26. Accessed 2026-10-17.
19. Binance, announcement index (FDUSD and USD1 Simple Earn promotions), 2025-03 to 2026-10. Accessed 2026-10-16.
20. Kraken asset list, Coinbase Exchange FDUSD lookup (not found) and Binance.US market list, 2026-10-16. Accessed 2026-10-16.