No.308
StraitsX USD XUSD
Singapore's regulated dollar coin
🎭 the port-customs officer of the dollar peg: every coin stamped, every dollar accounted for in the vault
💬 “For every one of me you hold, there is one real US dollar resting in a regulated bank in Singapore. Hand me back a token and I'll hand you back the dollar. No drama, no surprises, just a clean ledger.”
- What: a stablecoin worth $1, made by the Singapore fintech StraitsX.
- Backing: each token is matched 1:1 by real US dollars held at a bank, with DBS as custodian and audits checking the count.
- Job: fast, 24/7 cross-border payments and remittances across ASEAN and beyond.
- Where: a token on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain, with Solana planned for early 2026.
📖 The Story
In February 2024 a small piece of code went live on Ethereum, and a new dollar-pegged coin existed for the first time. Its parent, StraitsX, was already known in Singapore for one thing: doing the paperwork.
StraitsX grew out of the local fintech group Xfers, led by co-founder and CEO Tianwei Liu, and it had spent years building plumbing for digital-money payments. Its first coin, XSGD, was pegged to the Singapore dollar. But most of the world settles its bills in US dollars, so a USD sibling was the obvious next step. That sibling is XUSD.
The coin waited until the rules were ready. On July 17, 2024, StraitsX secured full Major Payment Institution licences from Singapore's regulator, the MAS, and on the same day it publicly launched XUSD. Singapore's MAS has since acknowledged both XSGD and XUSD as fitting the country's coming stablecoin framework. For a stablecoin, that licence is the whole personality: a promise, on paper, that the dollars behind the coins are really there.
By December 2025 the StraitsX pair, XSGD and XUSD together, had moved more than $18 billion across blockchains, and the company announced it would bring both coins to Solana in 2026. The customs officer had opened a new lane.
📊 Stats
These bands are our plain-language editorial read, not live market data.
🧩 How it works
XUSD is a fiat-collateralized stablecoin, which is the simplest kind. It is not mined and it runs no blockchain of its own, so it has no consensus mechanism. It is just a token issued on other chains. The magic is the matching dollar behind it: you give StraitsX $1, it mints one XUSD; you return one XUSD, it burns the token and gives back $1. The reserves sit at regulated banks (DBS handles custody), and outside auditors publish attestations confirming the coins are backed at least 100%.
🌗 Light & Shadow
- Issued under Singapore's Major Payment Institution licence, so it sits inside real regulation instead of a legal grey zone
- Fully backed 1:1 by USD reserves with a named bank custodian (DBS) and independent audits checking the count
- Built for cross-border payments and remittances that move 24/7, with the StraitsX pair already past $18 billion in onchain volume
- Centralized by design. One company can mint, freeze, or block tokens, so you are trusting StraitsX and its banks, not just code
- Small and young. A market value near $52 million (per CoinMarketCap, Dec 2025) is tiny next to USDC or USDT, so liquidity is thin
- The peg is only as solid as the reserves and the banks holding them. If a custodian bank wobbled, the $1 promise would feel it
🧬 Evolution lineage
XUSD is not a fork of anything. It is the US-dollar sibling of XSGD, the older Singapore-dollar coin from the same issuer, on the same rails. It also belongs to the wider family of fiat-backed USD stablecoins.
USD-stablecoin peers in the same family include USDC and USDT (Tether), plus PYUSD.
🧭 Meet other friends
❓ FAQ
- What is StraitsX USD (XUSD)?
- A stablecoin from the Singapore fintech StraitsX, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. Its smart contract first went live on Ethereum in February 2024, and it publicly launched on July 17, 2024. It is built for fast, around-the-clock cross-border payments and remittances.
- What backs each XUSD token?
- Every token is backed 1:1 by US dollar reserves held at regulated financial institutions, with DBS providing custody. Independent audits and attestations check that the reserves cover at least 100% of the coins in circulation.
- Which blockchains is XUSD on?
- XUSD is a token on existing chains, not its own blockchain. It is live on Ethereum (as an ERC-20 token) and on BNB Smart Chain (as a BEP-20 token). StraitsX announced in December 2025 a plan to bring it to Solana in early 2026.
- Is XUSD the same as XSGD?
- No. They are siblings from the same issuer, StraitsX, running on the same rails. XSGD is the older coin, pegged to the Singapore dollar; XUSD is pegged to the US dollar. Both have been acknowledged by Singapore's regulator (MAS) as fitting its coming stablecoin rules.
⚠️ Not investment advice. All figures are for information only