POPA RecondotUSD is Polkadot's DAO-governed native stablecoin, live since 8 Oct 2026. Today it is a 1:1 USDT-backed token, and the DOT-collateralised design is planned but not yet live
What it is
Polkadot's announcement says dotUSD has no issuing company and no single point of control, and that the DOT DAO governs it through OpenGov. Referendum 1944, "dotUSD: A Native Stablecoin for Polkadot", ran on the Root track and is marked Executed. The page shows about 98.5% Aye (≈4.63M DOT) against 1.5% Nay (≈70.81K DOT). A few secondary posts say 98.4%. The proposal calls dotUSD Polkadot's primary stable-value instrument and the network's native over-collateralised stablecoin. It also has the treasury create a DOT/dotUSD pool on the Hub DEX, seeded to a depth that fits the initial supply cap.
How it works
The launch is staged, per the Amurakis write-up of the launch. That post is the source for everything in this section.
Phase 1 (live): users mint dotUSD one-for-one against USDT under a supply cap, and can redeem back. It needs no oracle, vaults or liquidation engine. dotUSD therefore carries USDT's properties until Phase 2.
Phase 2 (intended, not live): a design adapted from Liquity v2. Users lock DOT in vaults and mint dotUSD against it. At 150% collateralisation, $1,500 of DOT supports up to $1,000 of dotUSD.
Each vault owner sets their own rate, which fixes their place in the redemption queue.
If dotUSD trades above $1, minting expands supply. Below $1, holders can redeem it for a dollar of collateral.
A stability pool absorbs liquidations. If it runs dry, debt and collateral are redistributed across the remaining vaults.
A capped stables buffer adds a peg floor that does not depend only on DOT's price.
Critics and neutral commentators stress the gap. cao_lab notes that live dotUSD is not yet backed by DOT. gandreou007 says DOT holders govern the system but DOT collateral is not live.
Seed funding
The same write-up says the referendum seeded the treasury pool with $2.5M in USDT, used to mint the initial supply, plus $2.5M in DOT. It also marked dotUSD as a sufficient asset, so holders need no DOT to keep it, and it set the early minting parameters. The Polkadot Community Foundation's role is described as administrative only. On 26 Sep, Polkadot said the DOT/USDT Hub pool had picked up an extra $2M.
Early adoption
Nova Wallet now supports sending, receiving and swapping dotUSD. computefluxAI says it is preparing dotUSD payments for AI compute.
Risks
The write-up lists oracle dependence, liquidation incentives and stability-pool depth as the risks of Phase 2. It cites the failure of the earlier Polkadot-ecosystem stablecoin aUSD.
Phase 1 depends on USDT and its issuer.
One critic, umairbattle, calls it a scam. This is an unsupported opinion.
CoinGape reports DOT near $1.04, down 4.69%.
Not established
The sources do not give a Phase 2 start date, the Phase 1 supply cap, the dotUSD market price or its liquidity. No DEX pair for dotUSD was found in market data. The seed amounts and Phase 2 mechanics come from the launch write-up, not from a primary document I could read in full.
Referendum 1944 · Polkadot announcement · Launch write-up · Nova Wallet