Stablecoin Tracker: Which Dollar Coins Hold Their $1 Peg

What Is A Stablecoin?

A stablecoin is a crypto token built to hold a steady value, almost always $1. Traders use stablecoins to park money between trades, and businesses use them to move dollars across blockchains at any hour. The issuer promises the peg. How well it keeps that promise depends on what backs the coin.

There are four main types. Cash and Treasury-backed coins, such as USDC, PayPal USD and Ripple USD, hold bank deposits and short-term US government debt and let approved customers redeem $1 for each token. Crypto-backed coins, such as Dai and GHO, are minted against crypto deposits worth more than the coins issued. Synthetic or algorithmic dollars, such as Ethena USDe, use trading positions or code instead of a pile of dollars. Yield-bearing dollars pass along interest or trading income, which brings extra risk.

A stablecoin can lose its $1 price when holders doubt the reserves, when the backing falls in value, when redemptions are paused or limited, or when trading on one exchange dries up. USDC fell to about 87 cents in March 2023 after Circle disclosed $3.3 billion stuck at Silicon Valley Bank.

The GENIUS Act, signed July 18, 2025, is the first US stablecoin law. It requires one-to-one reserves in cash and short-term Treasuries, monthly reserve reports examined by an accounting firm, and bars issuers from paying interest to holders. The law takes effect on January 18, 2027, 18 months after signing, because no final rules arrived early enough to start the law's earlier 120-day clock. The OCC issued its final rule on October 21, 2026, effective that same January date. Most other agencies were still at the proposal stage as of November 2, 2026, according to the Federal Register. That includes Treasury's proposal on state-level regimes, Treasury's August 2026 proposal on issuing and selling stablecoins, the FinCEN and OFAC anti-money-laundering proposal from April 2026, and the FDIC, Federal Reserve and NCUA rules. Treasury did adopt an interim final rule in September 2026 on how a federal committee reviews state certifications.

What To Look For In A Stablecoin

Check these four things before you hold a stablecoin for more than a few minutes.

• Reserves. Find out what backs each token. Cash, insured deposits and Treasury bills maturing within about three months are the safest under the GENIUS Act's rules. Crypto collateral, corporate loans, gold or bitcoin in the reserve add price risk.
• Attestations or audits. An attestation is an accounting firm's check of the reserves on one date. An audit reviews the issuer's full financial statements. Look for monthly reports from a named firm and note how far behind the latest one runs.
• Issuer and regulator. A named company supervised by a US regulator such as the OCC or the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) gives you a party to hold accountable. A decentralized protocol or an offshore issuer gives you far less recourse.
• Redemption. Ask who can trade the coin back to the issuer for $1, how fast, and at what fee. Most retail buyers sell on an exchange instead, and that price can slip below $1 in a panic even when the reserves are fine.

The Stablecoins We Track

Live Cult of Money Price, updated every minute. "On peg" means within half a cent of $1.

Tether launched in 2014 and is the largest dollar stablecoin. Its reserves are mostly Treasury bills, but Tether's own reports also list bitcoin, gold and secured loans. Tether and Bitfinex paid $18.5 million to settle with the New York Attorney General in 2021 and stopped serving New York residents. The CFTC fined Tether $41 million later that year over claims that USDT was always fully backed by dollars. USDT slid to about 95 cents on May 12, 2022, during the Terra collapse. For the US market, Tether launched a separate token, USAT, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, in January 2026.

USDC is the largest US-based dollar stablecoin. Circle's transparency page says most reserves sit in the Circle Reserve Fund, a government money market fund registered with the SEC and managed by BlackRock, with the rest in bank cash. A Big Four firm checks the reserves every month, and Circle discloses holdings weekly. USDC's worst stretch came in March 2023, when $3.3 billion of reserves were stuck at the failed Silicon Valley Bank and the coin fell to about 87 cents before regulators protected the bank's depositors. Circle won final OCC approval for a national trust bank on July 10, 2026. That bank handles custody, and USDC issuance stays with Circle's licensed entities.

USDS is the upgraded version of Dai, launched in 2024 when MakerDAO renamed itself Sky. Holders can swap Dai for USDS one-to-one. Sky mints USDS against crypto loans, tokenized Treasury bills and other real-world assets. Holders who deposit USDS into the Sky Savings Rate receive sUSDS, which earns protocol income. That savings feature makes it a yield-bearing option, which the GENIUS Act bars licensed payment stablecoin issuers from offering directly. No company stands behind USDS, so there is no regulator and no accounting firm attestation. Readers can check the collateral on-chain through Sky's documentation. USDS inherits Dai's design risks, including its past exposure to USDC.

USDe is a synthetic dollar. Ethena holds crypto such as staked ether and bitcoin, then opens short perpetual futures positions of the same size so the two cancel out. The income comes from futures funding payments, which Ethena passes to holders of staked sUSDe. When funding turns negative, that income shrinks or reverses. Ethena publishes monthly custodian attestations, and its USDe terms say US users can't mint USDe directly. In March 2025, BaFin prohibited new USDe business at Ethena GmbH under the EU's MiCA rules, and the unit later wound down. On October 10, 2025, USDe fell to 65 cents on Binance while holding near $1 on-chain. Binance later compensated affected users.

Dai launched in 2017 as the first major decentralized stablecoin. Users lock crypto worth more than the Dai they borrow, and the protocol sells that collateral if its value falls too far. Over time, MakerDAO added USDC and tokenized Treasuries to the backing, which steadied the peg but tied Dai to centralized issuers. That link showed in March 2023, when Dai hit an all-time low of about 88 cents as USDC lost its peg. MakerDAO responded with emergency changes to cap its USDC exposure. Sky now steers new users toward USDS, and Dai remains in circulation alongside it.

USD1 is the stablecoin of World Liberty Financial, a crypto company tied to President Trump and his family. World Liberty's disclosures, updated October 1, 2026, say DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity affiliated with Trump and some family members, owns about 38% of World Liberty's parent company, and that no Trump family member is an officer or employee. Eric Trump is president of DT Marks, according to American Banker. BitGo issues the token, holds the reserves and handles redemptions, and BitGo publishes the monthly attestations. In 2025, NYDIG criticized World Liberty for falling behind on those reports. On August 14, 2026, the OCC gave World Liberty Trust Company preliminary conditional approval for a national trust bank that would issue USD1. Some lawmakers and bank trade groups opposed the charter, and the new trust bank plans to take over issuing and holding USD1 from BitGo.

Global Dollar launched in late 2024. Paxos issues it from Singapore and Finland, not from its US trust company, and Singapore's DBS Bank holds the dollar reserves. USDG is built around the Global Dollar Network, a group of partners including Robinhood, Kraken and OKX that share the reserve income in exchange for distributing the coin. Paxos has its own regulatory history. NYDFS ordered Paxos to stop minting Binance's BUSD stablecoin in February 2023, and in August 2025 Paxos agreed to a $48.5 million settlement with NYDFS over its Binance due diligence. That total includes a $26.5 million penalty.

PayPal USD launched in August 2023 and is the first stablecoin from a major US payments company. PayPal and Venmo users can buy, hold and send it inside those apps. Paxos issues PYUSD and backs it with dollar deposits, short-term Treasuries and similar cash equivalents. Paxos's PYUSD transparency page shows KPMG has signed the monthly attestations since February 2025, alongside Paxos's own monthly reserve reports. PYUSD has not had a serious peg break. Its issuer settled with NYDFS in 2025 over the separate BUSD program (see Global Dollar above), and on December 12, 2025, Paxos converted to an OCC national trust charter, putting its US activity under federal supervision.

Ripple USD launched in December 2024 on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. Its issuer, Standard Custody, is a New York-chartered limited purpose trust company that Ripple bought. Ripple says each token is backed by dollar deposits and cash equivalents held in segregated accounts. Ripple posts monthly attestations, with the September 2026 report the latest listed when we checked. Ripple aims RLUSD at banks, payment firms and brokers, and approved customers can mint and redeem directly. RLUSD has not had a peg break. Readers can find launch details in our Ripple RLUSD debut coverage.

Falcon USD lets users deposit stablecoins, major crypto, smaller tokens and tokenized assets to mint a synthetic dollar. Holders who stake it receive sUSDf, which earns income from Falcon's trading strategies. DWF Labs, a crypto market maker, incubated the project, and DWF managing partner Andrei Grachev is also a managing partner at Falcon. In early July 2025, USDf fell well below $1, with reported lows between 88 and 94 cents, after critics questioned how much of the backing sat off-chain. Falcon published its first quarterly assurance report from Harris & Trotter in October 2025. That report is an assurance engagement, not a full audit.

USDD launched on the TRON blockchain in 2022 as an algorithmic stablecoin, weeks after TerraUSD collapsed. In June 2022, USDD slipped below its peg and traded under $1 for extended stretches, and Justin Sun pledged billions of dollars to defend it. The project later relaunched as USDD 2.0, which its documentation says is backed by more crypto collateral than the USDD in circulation. The code audits USDD cites cover its smart contracts, not its reserves. The SEC sued Justin Sun and three of his companies in March 2023 over unregistered sales of the TRX and BTT tokens and alleged wash trading of TRX.

BFUSD is a Binance product, and Binance itself says it is not a stablecoin. It launched in November 2024 as a reward-bearing margin asset for Binance Futures. Holders earn a daily reward, and traders can post BFUSD as futures collateral. BFUSD cannot be withdrawn from Binance or traded on the open market, so its $1 value depends entirely on Binance's redemption into USDT. The income comes from hedged spot and futures positions and ether staking, and Binance sends part of it to a BFUSD reserve fund. Binance pleaded guilty to US anti-money-laundering and sanctions violations in November 2023 and agreed to pay about $4.3 billion in a joint settlement with the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the CFTC.

USDGO went live on February 10, 2026, starting on Solana. Anchorage Digital Bank issues it and manages the reserves, while Hong Kong-listed OSL Group brands and sells it, with a focus on business payments in Asia. OSL says USDGO was designed to meet the GENIUS Act and is backed one-to-one by cash and short-term Treasuries. Anchorage posts monthly attestations from a Big Four firm. Anchorage was the first crypto firm with a national trust bank charter and also issues Tether's US token, USAT. The OCC hit Anchorage with an anti-money-laundering consent order in 2022.

Open USD was announced on June 30, 2026 by Open Standard, an independent company backed by more than 140 partners, including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Stripe and Coinbase. Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams leads it. Open Standard says partners receive the reserve income minus a management fee, and businesses can mint and redeem at no cost. Open Standard now lists the token as live, and Bridge's reserve page shows its first monthly attestation, for August 2026. Bridge's reserve page shows cash plus money market funds holding short-term Treasuries, checked monthly by an unnamed Big Four firm. Open USD is new, so it has a short track record.

GHO is the stablecoin of Aave, a large decentralized lending protocol. Users borrow GHO against crypto they deposit on Aave, and the protocol burns it when loans are repaid. Aave governance sets limits on the borrowing rate and approves "facilitators" that can mint GHO up to set caps, per Aave's GHO docs. They include the Aave V3 Ethereum market, a flash-minting contract and the GHO Stability Module, which swaps GHO for approved stablecoins. GHO launched in July 2023 and traded below $1 for most of its first months, until governance raised the borrowing rate to slow new minting. Holders can stake GHO as sGHO to earn a savings rate. GHO trades on decentralized exchanges and on Gate internationally.

USD0 is a stablecoin backed by tokenized Treasury bill funds rather than bank accounts. Usual's documentation says the main backing is Hashnote's USYC, a tokenized fund holding Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, with custody at BNY Mellon. Usual also offers USD0++, a locked version of USD0 that pays rewards in the USUAL token. In January 2025, Usual changed USD0++'s redemption terms, and USD0++ dropped to about 89 cents, setting off forced selling in lending markets that used it as collateral. That episode shows how a governance vote can move a "stable" token.

Stablecoin FAQ

Are Stablecoins Safe?

Stablecoins carry less price risk than bitcoin, but they are not risk-free. USDT, USDC, Dai, USDe and Falcon USD have all traded well below $1 at some point. The safest designs hold cash and short-term Treasuries, publish monthly reports from a named accounting firm, and answer to a US regulator. Even those depend on the issuer honoring redemptions.

Are Stablecoins FDIC Insured?

No. Stablecoins are not bank deposits, and the GENIUS Act bars issuers from implying that their tokens are federally insured. An issuer may keep reserves in insured banks, but that coverage protects the issuer's accounts, not you. If an exchange or issuer fails, recovery depends on bankruptcy rules, which the GENIUS Act tilts toward stablecoin holders for permitted issuers.

Can Stablecoins Pay Interest?

Under the GENIUS Act, licensed payment stablecoin issuers cannot pay interest or yield to holders. Some products still pay rewards. Sky's sUSDS, Ethena's sUSDe and Binance's BFUSD pass along protocol or trading income, and exchanges sometimes offer rewards on balances. Those payments come from riskier activity than a bank savings account.

Which Stablecoins Are Regulated In The US?

USDC and Ripple USD come from issuers supervised by New York's financial regulator, and the issuers of PayPal USD and USDGO hold OCC national trust charters. Tether's USDT is issued offshore. Decentralized coins such as Dai, USDS and GHO have no regulator at all. Full GENIUS Act licensing begins after the law takes effect on January 18, 2027.

Do You Pay Taxes On Stablecoins?

The IRS treats digital assets as property, so selling or spending a stablecoin is a taxable event. Because the value sits near $1, gains or losses are tiny unless the coin moved off its peg. Rewards or interest from stablecoins count as ordinary income. See how crypto taxes work for reporting rules, and USDC vs. USDT for a side-by-side look at the two largest coins.