First Digital Labs (FDUSD)
About
First Digital Labs, operating under FD121 (BVI) Limited, issues FDUSD — a fully-backed USD stablecoin redeemable 1:1 for US dollars. Designed for global payments, remittances, trade settlements, and DeFi use, FDUSD is available on Ethereum, Solana, Sui, BNB Chain, TON, and Arbitrum. The stablecoin is aimed at institutions, exchanges, and professional investors who need a transparent, programmable digital dollar with monthly attested reserves custodied by First Digital Trust Limited.
Where Does Yield Come From?
FDUSD itself does not pay any interest, yield, or returns to the people who hold it. The official whitepaper states clearly that holding FDUSD gives you only one right: the ability to redeem (swap back) each token for one US dollar. No extra money accrues over time just by owning it.
So who earns the yield? The issuer, FD121 — the company that created FDUSD. They earn returns from the reserve assets that back every token in circulation.
Here is how the money flows:
- Every FDUSD in circulation is backed by real assets held in a separate custody account at First Digital Trust Limited (FDT), a licensed trust company in Hong Kong.
- Those reserve assets include cash, bank deposits, short-term US Treasury bills, and overnight repurchase agreements (a type of short-term loan secured by US government debt).
- The interest and returns on those instruments — for example, the yield on Treasury bills or interest on deposits — belong to the issuer, not to FDUSD holders.
- Minting (creating) and redeeming FDUSD costs nearly nothing: there is a zero-fee policy as long as more tokens are minted than redeemed. So the issuer does not charge per-transaction fees. Instead, it covers its operating costs from the yield earned on the reserves.
To keep things transparent, an independent auditor checks every month (using a standard called ISAE 3000) that the value of the reserves is at least equal to the total number of FDUSD in circulation.
A note on third-party platforms: Outside services like Aave, Curve, Uniswap, PancakeSwap, Kamino, and NAVI may offer lending or trading pools where people can deposit FDUSD to earn yield. Those are separate products run by other companies — they are not operated or endorsed by First Digital Labs, and they are not part of the FDUSD stablecoin itself.
Persons
Vincent Chok
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Gunnar Jaerv
Chief Operating Officer
Michael Titus
General Counsel
Audits
| Audit / Date | Findings | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
Quantstamp01-12-2025 - 04-12-2025 |
| The audit identified only low and informational front-running risks, both acknowledged by the client, and no high or medium severity issues, indicating the core contract logic is reasonably sound, though the acknowledged vectors remain unmitigated by design and should be considered when deploying upgrade transactions. |
PeckShield09-12-2025 |
| The audit identified no critical or high-severity vulnerabilities; the single medium-severity issue (centralized admin key risk) was mitigated via multi-sig, and the informational storage issue was resolved, indicating a sound contract design for the FDUSD stablecoin. |
Quantstamp09-12-2024 - 11-12-2024 |
| The TON FDUSD audit found no security vulnerabilities; the reviewed contracts are unmodified forks of official TON repositories and the team demonstrated good deployment practices, making the protocol's security posture sound for its intended use. |
OtterSec10-06-2024 - 11-06-2024 |
| The audit found no vulnerabilities affecting fund safety; only two informational suggestions (code maturity and metadata freezing) were raised, both of which are non-critical and can be addressed as best-practice improvements. |
Quantstamp05-06-2024 - 10-06-2024 |
| The audit found no critical or high-severity issues; the only low-severity item was resolved before final reporting, and the undetermined-severity observation was acknowledged with a valid rationale. The codebase is a straightforward regulated coin implementation with limited risk. |
Quantstamp26-11-2024 |
| The Quantstamp review of the FDUSD Solana token found no exploitable vulnerabilities in the on-chain configuration; the enabled mint and freeze authorities are secured by a multi-signature setup consistent with stablecoin best practices, though the uncapped supply remains a centralization consideration managed off-chain. |
Legal
Legal form
Company limited by shares (BVI business company)
Registration jurisdiction
British Virgin Islands (BVI)
Status and notes
The operating entity is FD121 (BVI) Limited, a company limited by shares incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, doing business under the brand name 'First Digital Labs'. FDUSD is issued by FD121 (BVI) Limited. The entity expressly states it is not a trust company, not a bank, but a financial technology company. Custody services of reserves are provided by First Digital Trust Limited. FDUSD is not intended for U.S. persons or entities; minting/redemption not offered to U.S. persons. The legal framework comprises the FD121 Account User Agreement, FDD Terms, FDD Risk Factors, and Privacy Policy, all governed by the laws of Hong Kong with exclusive jurisdiction in the courts of Hong Kong. The website publishes an imprint/footer with important disclosures, regulatory disclaimers, and links to the full Legal & Privacy page (https://firstdigitallabs.com/legal/).