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What Is First Digital USD?

First Digital USD (ticker FDUSD) is a US dollar stablecoin launched in June 2023 by First Digital, a financial group based in Hong Kong. Each token is intended to be redeemable 1:1 for US dollars and is backed by cash and cash equivalents rather than by an algorithm or by crypto collateral. It launched on Ethereum and BNB Chain and has since been issued on Solana, Sui, Arbitrum, and TON.

The corporate structure matters, because it comes up later. FDUSD is issued by FD121 (BVI) Limited, trading as First Digital Labs, which took over issuance from a Hong Kong entity in August 2025. The reserve assets are custodied by a separate group company, First Digital Trust Limited, which is a licensed Trust or Company Service Provider under Hong Kong's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615) and a registered trust company under the Trustee Ordinance (Cap. 29). Reserves are held in segregated structures so that they are isolated from the trust company's own balance sheet.

On reserves and disclosure, First Digital publishes monthly attestation reports from an independent third-party firm on its transparency page, and states that reserves are held in cash and cash equivalents such as short-dated US Treasury bills. This is an attestation, which is a point-in-time check, not a full financial audit. The FDUSD smart contracts implement the ERC-20 standard and have been audited by PeckShield and Quantstamp. Note that First Digital Labs does not sell or redeem tokens directly with retail users; only onboarded institutional clients who clear AML and KYC checks can mint and redeem at par. Everyone else buys and sells FDUSD on the open market.

Its regulatory position is unsettled. Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance took effect on August 1, 2025 and made fiat-referenced stablecoin issuance a licensed activity there. FDUSD is not issued under that regime; the Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted its first stablecoin issuer licences in April 2026, to Anchorpoint Financial Limited and HSBC. First Digital's own transparency page says the company is "actively working to secure regulatory authorisation for its stablecoin issuance activities from a recognised and reputable financial regulatory authority." Issuance was moved to the British Virgin Islands in August 2025, which the company framed as a step in its regulatory roadmap.

FDUSD's rise and fall are both explained largely by one relationship: Binance. After New York regulators ordered Paxos to stop minting BUSD in February 2023, Binance needed a replacement for its in-house stablecoin. It listed FDUSD in July 2023, ran zero-fee trading promotions on FDUSD spot pairs, ended BUSD support on December 15, 2023, and automatically converted remaining user BUSD balances to FDUSD at 1:1. Free trading and a captive user base did what you would expect: FDUSD pairs peaked at roughly 38 percent of Binance spot volume in February 2024 and stayed above a third for much of the first half of that year, and supply grew to a peak of roughly 4.8 billion dollars in early 2025, briefly making FDUSD one of the largest stablecoins in the world.

That growth was rented, not owned. Binance began winding back the zero-fee promotions from April 2024, and as the subsidy faded so did the reason to hold FDUSD rather than USDT or USDC. Supply drifted down through 2025 and 2026. As of July 2026 the circulating supply is roughly 348 million FDUSD, a market capitalisation of about 350 million dollars, which is roughly 93 percent below the peak. The peg itself has held: FDUSD trades at about $0.997.

The other reason for the decline was a public dispute with Tron founder Justin Sun. On April 2, 2025, Sun publicly alleged that First Digital Trust was insolvent, claiming it had misappropriated around 456 million dollars of reserves backing a different stablecoin, TrueUSD, for which First Digital Trust had acted as custodian. FDUSD briefly lost its peg on the news, trading as low as roughly 87 cents on some venues before recovering within about a day. Holders redeemed, and Binance co-founder Yi He said Binance would carry out its own audit of FDUSD, while stating she had no inside knowledge of the dispute. It is worth noting that an audit by Binance is not an independent one, given that Binance was FDUSD's largest venue and promoter.

These are allegations, not findings, and it is important to say so plainly. First Digital denied them in full, described Sun's claims as a smear campaign, said FDUSD remained fully backed, and stated that it had acted on the instructions of Techteryx, the owner of TrueUSD. It published evidence of redemptions clearing, processing roughly 26 million dollars of redemptions in the days after the depeg. In April 2025 First Digital Trust filed a defamation claim against Sun in the Hong Kong High Court (case HCA 680), seeking an injunction restraining further statements plus damages. Sun said he welcomed the legal process and has repeated his allegations publicly since, escalating in March 2026 to a 100 million dollar bounty for information about the missing TrueUSD reserves. As of July 2026 the litigation is still live and no Hong Kong court has ruled on the merits of either side's case. The claims against First Digital remain unproven, contested, and the subject of active litigation.

One later development cuts in First Digital's favour and is worth recording. In November 2025 the Dubai Digital Economy Court granted Techteryx a worldwide freezing order covering up to 456 million dollars of assets, but the order was made against Aria Commodities DMCC, the Dubai commodities firm the funds were allegedly directed into. First Digital Trust was not a party to that application and the court made no findings against it. First Digital publicly welcomed the order as a step towards recovering Techteryx's funds. A freezing order is a preservation measure, not a determination of liability against anyone.

Getting Started With First Digital USD

FDUSD behaves like any other fiat-backed stablecoin. Most people acquire it on an exchange rather than minting it, since direct issuance is limited to institutional clients.

  1. Step 1: Pick the chain you want to hold FDUSD on. BNB Chain and Ethereum have the deepest liquidity, with Solana, Sui, Arbitrum, and TON also supported.
  2. Step 2: Set up a wallet for that chain, or use an exchange account if you plan to hold and trade there rather than self-custody.
  3. Step 3: Buy FDUSD on an exchange (Binance is by far the largest venue) or swap into it on a decentralised exchange.
  4. Step 4: Before holding a large balance, read the latest attestation report on First Digital's transparency page and understand that FDUSD is thinner and more concentrated on one exchange than USDT or USDC.

How to Get a First Digital USD Wallet?

FDUSD is a standard token on each chain it is issued on, so any wallet that supports that chain will hold it.

MetaMask

MetaMask holds FDUSD on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Arbitrum as a normal ERC-20 token. Add the contract address manually if the token does not appear automatically.

Trust Wallet

Trust Wallet is a common choice for BNB Chain, where a large share of FDUSD activity happens, and supports multiple chains in one app.

Phantom

Phantom supports FDUSD on Solana, where transfers are fast and cheap.

Hardware Wallets

A Ledger device paired with MetaMask or Phantom keeps the private keys offline. This is the sensible option for larger balances, though it does not protect you from issuer or reserve risk, only from key theft.

First Digital USD Resources

How to Buy First Digital USD?

FDUSD liquidity is heavily concentrated on Binance. Trading it elsewhere is possible but the order books are much thinner, which is worth knowing before you size a position.

Centralized Exchanges

Binance remains the dominant venue for FDUSD, though it has been steadily pruning FDUSD trading pairs through 2026, so check which markets are still live before planning a trade. FDUSD is also listed on Gate, MEXC, Bitget, BTSE, Coins.ph, Tokocrypto, and Indodax.

Decentralized Exchanges

On BNB Chain, FDUSD trades on PancakeSwap. On Ethereum it is available on Uniswap and Curve, mostly in stablecoin pairs against USDT and USDC. Solana and Sui liquidity exists on venues such as Raydium, Meteora, and Cetus, but it is shallow. Fund a wallet on the relevant chain, connect, and swap, and check slippage carefully on the smaller pools.

Latest First Digital USD News

First Digital has spent 2025 and 2026 trying to build demand that does not depend on Binance subsidies. FDUSD went live natively on Arbitrum in June 2025 and on TON in July 2025, gasless EIP-3009 transfers arrived on BNB Chain in December 2025, and the company announced institutional integrations with MetaComp, Quantus.fi, and Canza Finance. In April 2026 it announced a partnership with Singapore Gulf Bank aimed at faster settlement and better liquidity management for institutional FDUSD flows.

None of this has reversed the shrinkage so far. Supply has continued to slide, sitting near 350 million dollars in mid-2026 against a peak of roughly 4.8 billion, and the defamation case against Justin Sun remains unresolved in the Hong Kong High Court, with Sun continuing to press his allegations publicly and First Digital continuing to deny them. The peg has been stable throughout, and the transparency page remains the place to check the latest monthly reserve attestation.