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Head-to-head · Stablecoins

FDUSD (First Digital USD) vs USDS (Sky) FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads by 7 points.

FDUSD (First Digital USD) scores 7 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope. FDUSD (First Digital USD) ranks #4 and USDS (Sky) #10 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.

FDUSD (First Digital USD)62
USDS (Sky)55
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #4 and #10 of 11
Methodology v2026.10.18Ranking snapshot Evidence verified through 4 published criteria5 score dimensions Receipt #cc-VS-FDUSD-FIRST-DIGITAL-USD-VS-USDS-SKY-d0bc39dd
Published verdictRanking snapshot 3 November 2026

FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads by 7 points

FDUSD (First Digital USD) scores 7 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope.

FDUSD (First Digital USD) #4 of 1162
USDS (Sky) #10 of 1155
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termFDUSD (First Digital USD) leads on 2 of 4 published criteria; USDS (Sky) on 2. The terms sum to the gap.
TermFDUSD (First Digital USD)USDS (Sky)WeightPoints
Counterparty and insolvency rank2/101/107.2+1.9for FDUSD (First Digital USD)+1.0 of 32
Redemption right exercised3/104/106.7−1.7for USDS (Sky)−0.9 of 32
Reserve and assurance scope6/101/105.8+7.5for FDUSD (First Digital USD)+3.8 of 32
Seizure and upgrade authority4/105/104.3−1.1for USDS (Sky)−0.6 of 32
Net of the terms+6.5
Reproduced gap+6.5
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below6255+7.0

Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.

  • A row-above bound on one row means the criterion arithmetic does not reproduce the displayed gap exactly.
Quick facts

At a glance

2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactFDUSD (First Digital USD)USDS (Sky)
PricingSnapshotNO FEE SCHEDULE IS PUBLISHED ANYWHERE REACHABLE, AND NO MINIMUM IS PUBLISHED AT ALL. Re-verified 29 September 2026. (a) The binding FDD Terms (https://firstdigitallabs.webflow.io/legal/fdd-terms, fetched 29 September 2026) are SILENT on mint and redeem fees and on minimums: the document’s only fee sentence concerns currency conversion — “If you transmit your wire in a currency other than in the currency which the FDD is denominated in, we will deduct an amount of FDD that results following a currency conversion of any fees charged for such currency conversion.” (b) The FD121 Account User Agreement (https://firstdigitallabs.webflow.io/legal/fd121-account-user-agreement, fetched 29 September 2026) defers to a schedule it does not link: “FD121 may charge fees in connection with the Services. You agree to pay the fees shown to you, if any, or as separately agreed between you and FD121 without set off or deduction. Fees are generally disclosed in the fee schedule which we publicize from time to time; we may change any of the fees that FD121 charges at any time, with or without notice.” No such schedule was found at any URL on 29 September 2026. A full-text search of both documents for “minimum” returns only the severability boilerplate “the minimum extent necessary” — there is no minimum ticket published anywhere. (c) The only price claim is on the product marketing page (https://firstdigitallabs.webflow.io/fdusd, fetched 29 September 2026), under the heading “Mint and Redeem at Near-Zero Cost”: “We offer zero fee minting and redemption, as long as you mint more than you redeem.” The condition matters — zero-fee redemption holds only while the client mints more than it redeems, and what is charged otherwise is published nowhere; this marketing claim is in no binding document. (d) Access, quoted from the issuer’s transparency page (fetched 29 September 2026): “Please note that First Digital Labs does not sell tokens directly to retail customers.”MINT/REDEEM FEES AND MINIMUMS ARE NOT IN ANY BINDING DOCUMENT. The Skybase International Terms of Use (https://docs.sky.money/legal/skybase-international/terms-of-use, "Version: 2.0 | Last Modified: 1 September 2026", fetched 29 September 2026) is the silent page: 0 occurrences of "redeem" or "redemption", and no fee schedule or minimum of any kind for acquiring or exiting USDS. The only published pricing sits in the protocol documentation and on-chain. Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/protocol/tokens/usds/ (redirects to developers.skyeco.com, fetched 29 September 2026), DAI USDS Converter: "Converts DAI to USDS at a fixed ratio of 1:1 and vice versa." / "No fees assessed." / "Fees cannot be enabled on this route in the future." Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/guides/psm/litepsm/ (fetched 29 September 2026): "The tin fee is assessed on all sellGem transactions, and the tout fee is assessed on all buyGem transactions. Both tin and tout values are set by Sky Ecosystem governance." and "All users, both public and authorized, can only swap up to the DAI and USDC balances held by LitePSM-DAI-USDC." CURRENT VALUES, all read at ONE Ethereum block, 26,082,220 (2026-09-29T09:26:59Z) via https://ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com: LitePSM-DAI-USDC 0xf6e72Db5454dd049d0788e411b06CfAF16853042 tin() = 0 and tout() = 0; LitePSMWrapper-USDS-USDC 0xA188EEC8F81263234dA3622A406892F3D630f98c tin() = 0 and tout() = 0. No minimum size is published or enforced on either route; the practical ceiling is module inventory — 4,133,680,653.128042 USDC in the Pocket 0x37305B1cD40574E4C5Ce33f8e8306Be057fD7341 at that block against a USDS totalSupply of 6,672,590,279.74 (label: on-chain reads, true only at the stamped block). Marketing counterpart on https://sky.money/ (fetched 29 September 2026), reworded since August: "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage."
Asset coverageEditorial——
Region fitSnapshotglobalglobal
From the published criteria

Which should you pick?

FDUSD (First Digital USD)

62#4 of 11
Leads
Pick it when
Pick FDUSD (First Digital USD) if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most — it scores 2/10 to USDS (Sky)'s 1/10 there (weight 30).
Strength
Reserve and assurance scope — 6/10
Tradeoff
The marketing says the reserve sits in a “bankruptcy-remote trust structure” and the contract says you own none of it. https://firstdigitallabs.webflow.io/fdusd (read 2026-08-19) states: “FDUSD is fully backed on a one-to-one basis by cash and cash equivalents only, held in a secure, bankruptcy-remote trust structure.” The transparency page adds that reserve assets are “fully segregated from the Trust company’s assets to isolate the Trust company’s bankruptcy” — the CUSTODIAN's bankruptcy, not the issuer's. The FDD Terms (https://firstdigitallabs.webflow.io/legal/fdd-terms, read 2026-08-19) then say of the issuer: “FDD Reserves are owned beneficially by FD121.” and, in the next sentence, “you acknowledge that you are not entitled, whether by way of contract, trust or otherwise, to such assets or any interest or other returns whatsoever earned by FD121 or its custodian on FDD Reserves.” The footer of that same Terms page settles it: “FD121 (BVI) Limited, which is not a trust company, is a financial technology company, not a bank.” A buyer who reads only the product page will believe a trust stands between them and FD121 (BVI) Limited's insolvency. No document says it does, the Terms say the opposite, the issuer's own footer says it is not a trust company, and FD121 (BVI) Limited holds no stablecoin authorisation on any register — the HKMA Register of Licensees under the Stablecoins Ordinance, re-loaded 2026-08-19, names only Anchorpoint Financial Limited (FRS01) and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (FRS02).

USDS (Sky)

55#10 of 11
Pick it when
Pick USDS (Sky) if redemption right exercised matters most — it scores 4/10 to FDUSD (First Digital USD)'s 3/10 there (weight 28).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10
Tradeoff
That nobody is on the other side. Sky's binding Terms of Use (Version 2.0, last modified 1 September 2026) contain zero occurrences of the words "redeem" or "redemption", and the same document states that Skybase International "is not a subsidiary, agent, or representative of the Sky Protocol" and that neither it nor its affiliates are "party to any transaction on the Sky Protocol" — so there is no entity a holder can present USDS to for a dollar, and no insolvency rank to hold. The par exit everyone actually uses is a swap into USDC through a governance-owned module, and Sky's own protocol documentation says "Governance can set either tin or tout to the value of type(uint256).max , halting sellGem and buyGem transactions respectively on the LitePSM. Transactions would be halted for both public and authorized users." while sky.money's homepage advertises "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage." Worse than the fee switch: the DAI leg's converter is genuinely immutable, but it mints through UsdsJoin, whose mint call is auth-gated on the token, so a single deny() from the pause proxy severs that route too. A buyer who read only the homepage would learn none of this.
Self-identify in 10 seconds

Which one is actually for you?

FDUSD (First Digital USD)Leads

Choose FDUSD (First Digital USD) if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most

  • Counterparty and insolvency rank: 2/10 against 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 30)
  • Reserve and assurance scope: 6/10 against 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 24)
USDS (Sky)

Choose USDS (Sky) if redemption right exercised matters most

  • Redemption right exercised: 4/10 against 3/10 for FDUSD (First Digital USD) (weight 28)
  • Seizure and upgrade authority: 5/10 against 4/10 for FDUSD (First Digital USD) (weight 18)
Criterion by criterion

Scorecard

Published criteria · weight in points of 868 of 8 cells scored. Strength is read from the evidence file; the weight is the published one. Methodology

Counterparty and insolvency rank

by 1 of 10weight 7.2 of 86FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads
FDUSD (First Digital USD)2 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Redemption right exercised

by 1 of 10weight 6.7 of 86USDS (Sky) leads
FDUSD (First Digital USD)3 out of 10
USDS (Sky)4 out of 10

Reserve and assurance scope

by 5 of 10weight 5.8 of 86FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads
FDUSD (First Digital USD)6 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Seizure and upgrade authority

by 1 of 10weight 4.3 of 86USDS (Sky) leads
FDUSD (First Digital USD)4 out of 10
USDS (Sky)5 out of 10

Score dimensions

weights sum to 86

The published score is five dimensions, each weighted for the category. "Published criteria" is the criteria block above; the other four are the engine's own terms — availability, friction, trust record, measured data. Each bar is one side's points out of that dimension's maximum; the weight beside the name is its points of the 86-point weighted total. The published criteria above can fill 24 of the block’s 30. A weight marked “constant here” belongs to a dimension every ranked product in the category holds at the same value: it still counts in the total, and it orders nothing here.

Availabilityweight 20 of 86 · constant here
FDUSD (First Digital USD)14/20USDS (Sky)14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
FDUSD (First Digital USD)8.6/30USDS (Sky)6.1/30
FDUSD (First Digital USD) leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
FDUSD (First Digital USD)2.7/10USDS (Sky)2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
FDUSD (First Digital USD)3.2/8USDS (Sky)3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
FDUSD (First Digital USD)8.3/18USDS (Sky)8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order

Choose FDUSD (First Digital USD) unless the term USDS (Sky) leads on is the one you are buying.

Pick USDS (Sky) if redemption right exercised matters most — it scores 4/10 to FDUSD (First Digital USD)'s 3/10 there (weight 28).

The published order weighs every criterion the same way for everyone. To weigh them your way, run .

From the published order

Next best action

If this isn't your case

Other matchups worth comparing

How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
  • Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
    Scored by Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · 18% (FDUSD (First Digital USD) 4/10, USDS (Sky) 5/10)
  • Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.
    Scored by Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? · 30% (FDUSD (First Digital USD) 2/10, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
    Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (FDUSD (First Digital USD) 6/10, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
  • Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.
    Scored by Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? · 28% (FDUSD (First Digital USD) 3/10, USDS (Sky) 4/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Questions

Frequently asked questions

FDUSD (First Digital USD) scores 7 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope. Published scores, out of 100: FDUSD (First Digital USD) 62 (rank 4 of 11 stablecoins), USDS (Sky) 55 (rank 10 of 11).

Related pages

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Written and reviewed by Founder
Reviewed Next review by Methodology v2026.10.18
How this page is reviewed

Reviewed means both products compared here was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.

Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.

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