USDT vs FDUSD
Tether (USDT) and First Digital USD (FDUSD) are both dollar stablecoins, but they are built very differently. Here is how they compare on live data and on what actually matters for safety.
| Tether (USDT) | First Digital USD (FDUSD) | |
|---|---|---|
| Issuer | Tether | First Digital |
| Type | Fiat-backed | Fiat-backed |
| Backing | Reserves held by Tether, mostly short-term US Treasury bills | Cash and short-term US Treasuries, per monthly attestations |
| Launched | October 2014 | June 2023 |
| Market cap | $184.14B | $324.58M |
| Price | $0.9998 | $0.9986 |
| Distance from $1 | -0.02% | -0.14% |
| Chains | 130 | 6 |
| Worst recorded depeg | $0.9250 (Oct 2018) | $0.8700 (Apr 2025) |
| Lost to inflation | −29% | −9% |
| Regulation | Not authorized under the EU's MiCA; a separate US token (USA₮) is issued under the GENIUS Act | Issued by a Hong Kong–based trust company |
The key difference
Both are fiat-backed and popular on centralized exchanges, especially Binance. USDT is vastly larger and spread across dozens of chains and venues; FDUSD is smaller and more dependent on a single exchange, and its April 2025 depeg showed how a public dispute about an issuer can move the price.
Bottom line
Neither is risk-free. The better choice depends on which risk you would rather carry — issuer and reserve risk, smart-contract and collateral risk, or derivatives risk — and both still lose value to dollar inflation. This comparison is informational, not financial advice.
Stablecoins copy the dollar — inflation included. Unstablecoins take the opposite bet: no peg, a fixed or shrinking supply and volatility on the label. See them in the live unstablecoin rankings.
Market data: DefiLlama (hourly). Inflation: US CPI-U from FRED. This page is informational and not financial advice.