USDT (Tether) vs TUSD (TrueUSD) USDT (Tether) leads by 4 points.
USDT (Tether) scores 4 points above TUSD (TrueUSD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and seizure and upgrade authority. USDT (Tether) ranks #6 and TUSD (TrueUSD) #11 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.
USDT (Tether)57
vs
TUTUSD (TrueUSD)53
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #6 and #11 of 11
USDT (Tether) scores 4 points above TUSD (TrueUSD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and seizure and upgrade authority.
USDT (Tether) #6 of 1157
TUTUSD (TrueUSD) #11 of 1153
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termUSDT (Tether) leads on 2 of 4 published criteria; TUSD (TrueUSD) on 0. The terms sum to the gap.
TermUSDT (Tether)TUSD (TrueUSD)WeightPoints
Counterparty and insolvency rank2/101/107.2+1.9for USDT (Tether)+1.0 of 32
Seizure and upgrade authority5/103/104.3+2.2for USDT (Tether)+1.2 of 32
Net of the terms+4.1
Reproduced gap+4.2
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below5753+4.0
Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.
USDT (Tether)Score 57The largest fiat-reserve stablecoin, issued by El Salvador-authorised Tether International, S.A. de C.V. under terms still governed by British Virgin Islands law — terms that expressly disclaim segregation and insurance, make the redemption right "personal to you" rather than attached to the token, gate par redemption behind a 100,000 USD minimum and a $1,000 floor fee, and whose quarterly ISAE 3000R assurance shows a quarter of the reserve in gold, bitcoin, equities, secured loans and an "Other Investments" bucket defined only as everything that is not the other categories.Strength: Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10Watch-out: That there is no such thing as "your" dollar at Tether — and, for almost everyone reading this, no such thing as your redemption right either. The buyer's mental model is a segregated dollar held for them, redeemable on demand. The binding terms say the opposite twice over. Balances are "not segregated assets held in your name or for your benefit but reflected only in the books and records of Tether"; the reserve is defined as every asset the company owns rather than a ring-fence carved out for holders; the claim is booked as an IFRS 9 "refund liability", an unsecured payable. And the exit is not a property of the token: "The right to purchase Tether Tokens or have Tether Tokens redeemed is a contractual right personal to you" — unlike USDC's terms, which assign the right onward to "any subsequent Holder", Tether's right belongs to the verified customer who contracted for it and does not travel with the coin you bought on an exchange. Four things compound it. (1) Even for that customer the exit is gated: 100,000 USD minimum to redeem and a fee of "The greater of $1,000 or 0.1%", which is 1.0% at that minimum, not the advertised 0.1%. (2) A quarter of the reserve — US$47.1bn of gold, bitcoin, equities, corporate bonds, an unnamed US$13.45bn secured-loan book and a US$5.24bn "Other Investments" bucket defined only as whatever fits no other row — sits behind an equity buffer of US$4.11bn that just shrank 35% on a US$3.17bn half-year loss, with no custodian named anywhere and an unprovisioned New York class action disclosed on the same page. (3) The contract is construed as a British Virgin Islands contract even though the issuer redomiciled to El Salvador, so the register entry and the governing law point at different jurisdictions. (4) If you are a US Person you are contractually prohibited from holding it at all. The deepest market in crypto is not the same thing as a claim you can enforce.TUSD (TrueUSD)Score 53A live stablecoin whose binding Terms of Use name no legal entity and expressly do not guarantee redemption, and whose own same-day assurance report — reasonable assurance under ISAE 3000 (Revised), signed by Moore CPA Limited — shows US Treasury Bills of $0 and 99.98% of the reserve sitting as a single at-cost balance at First Digital Trust Limited that the report says 'cannot be readily convertible to cash' and is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.Strength: Redemption right exercised — 3/10Watch-out: That the reserve backing it holds zero US Treasury Bills. TUSD's own assurance report, dated 19 August 2026 and signed by Moore CPA Limited, lists 'US Treasury Bills $0', '$78,900.88' of cash, and $501,850,000 — 99.98% — as a single balance at First Digital Trust Limited, which the same report says 'has invested all or substantially all of the collateral in other instruments to generate yield, which cannot be readily convertible to cash, and are subject to ongoing legal proceedings.' Techteryx has a worldwide freezing order from the DIFC Courts over up to US$456 million and says it has arranged separate 'alternative liquidity' so that tokens 'in public circulation' can still be redeemed — while the same report discloses that 412,585,497.92 of the 494,515,082.75 tokens issued are held by Techteryx itself. A close second: the Terms of Use you agree to name no company at all — 'Company' is defined as 'us', and a search of the full Terms for 'Ltd', 'Limited', 'LLC', 'Inc.' and 'Techteryx' returns zero hits — and those same Terms state that 'the Company does not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of TrueUSD tokens for US Dollars.'
Quick facts
At a glance
2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactUSDT (Tether)TUSD (TrueUSD)
PricingSnapshothttps://tether.to/en/fees (HTTP 200 after redirect to /en/fees/, fetched 29 September 2026) publishes exactly four rows: “Minimum Tether Token acquisition or redemption amount” — “100,000 USD”; “Fee per redemption” — “The greater of $1,000 or 0.1%”; “Fee per acquisition” — “0.1%”; “Verification fee” — “150 USD in Tether Tokens”. On the verification fee, quoted continuously: “This amount is non-refundable but can be part of your redemption. The verification fee is intended to ensure that only those who are serious about establishing an account apply. The fee also helps offset a portion of the incurred costs from the execution of a robust verification process. Tether maintains the sole discretion to approve or not approve accounts. By submitting a verification request you agree that the 150 USD₮ deposit is non-refundable.” Also: “Tether does not offer wallet functionality for any digital tokens. Withdrawal requests for digital tokens held by Tether are evaluated per request and can take several days to process.” WORKED EXAMPLE (label: derived arithmetic, not a quote): the redemption floor equals 10 basis points only at one million US dollars, so at the published minimum of one hundred thousand it is 1.0 per cent; a minimum-size round trip costs 100 + 1,000 + 150 = 1,250 US dollars on 100,000, i.e. 1.25 per cent. The 30 June 2026 Reserves Report (BDO Advisory Services S.r.l., signed “Milan, 31 July 2026”, still the newest on 29 September 2026) books the fee into the liability: “As per its definition, contractual redemption value of the token takes into consideration the redemption fee of 10 basis points.”MINT/REDEEM FEES — TrueUSD Terms of Use, https://app.tusd.io/terms-of-use (a JavaScript app; the Terms text is served from https://app-cdn.tusd.io/static/js/4464.9b870b98.chunk.js, the same build as in August, fetched 29 September 2026): "You are responsible for all on-chain transaction costs associated with on-chain transfers of any TrueUSD. The Company does not charge any Fees for minting or redeeming any TrueUSD and does not charge any on-chain transaction fees in addition to the blockchain-specific transaction fees associated with such transfers." HOMEPAGE ECHO — https://tusd.io (fetched 29 September 2026): "Additionally, TUSD does not charge any fees for its minting and redemption." MINIMUM — Terms of Use: "We reserve the right to prohibit wire submissions of fiat currency or redemption requests of TrueUSD if the total amount submitted or requested is less than US$1,000." — a discretionary floor, not a stated hard minimum: the issuer reserves the right to REFUSE below US$1,000 rather than promising to accept at or above it. ROUNDING — Terms of Use: "All TrueUSD tokens will be rounded down to the nearest amount of the lowest circulating denomination of the underlying fiat currency, upon redemption." WHAT THE FREE FEE BUYS — the same Terms: "The Platform is only intended to facilitate such mints and redemptions and the Company does not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of TrueUSD tokens for US Dollars." and "In order to cause TrueUSD tokens to be issued or redeemed by the Company, you must be a verified customer of the Company." SILENT ON: no page loaded on 29 September 2026 states a redemption SLA, a settlement window, a banking-partner wire fee, or any maximum; no separate fee-schedule page exists. TYPED RATE (label, not a quote): spreadPct = 0 — the issuer charges no mint or redemption fee; only network gas applies.
Asset coverageEditorial——
Region fitSnapshotglobalglobal
From the published criteria
Which should you pick?
USDT (Tether)
57#6 of 11
Leads
Pick it when
Pick USDT (Tether) if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most — it scores 2/10 to TUSD (TrueUSD)'s 1/10 there (weight 30).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10
Tradeoff
That there is no such thing as "your" dollar at Tether — and, for almost everyone reading this, no such thing as your redemption right either. The buyer's mental model is a segregated dollar held for them, redeemable on demand. The binding terms say the opposite twice over. Balances are "not segregated assets held in your name or for your benefit but reflected only in the books and records of Tether"; the reserve is defined as every asset the company owns rather than a ring-fence carved out for holders; the claim is booked as an IFRS 9 "refund liability", an unsecured payable. And the exit is not a property of the token: "The right to purchase Tether Tokens or have Tether Tokens redeemed is a contractual right personal to you" — unlike USDC's terms, which assign the right onward to "any subsequent Holder", Tether's right belongs to the verified customer who contracted for it and does not travel with the coin you bought on an exchange. Four things compound it. (1) Even for that customer the exit is gated: 100,000 USD minimum to redeem and a fee of "The greater of $1,000 or 0.1%", which is 1.0% at that minimum, not the advertised 0.1%. (2) A quarter of the reserve — US$47.1bn of gold, bitcoin, equities, corporate bonds, an unnamed US$13.45bn secured-loan book and a US$5.24bn "Other Investments" bucket defined only as whatever fits no other row — sits behind an equity buffer of US$4.11bn that just shrank 35% on a US$3.17bn half-year loss, with no custodian named anywhere and an unprovisioned New York class action disclosed on the same page. (3) The contract is construed as a British Virgin Islands contract even though the issuer redomiciled to El Salvador, so the register entry and the governing law point at different jurisdictions. (4) If you are a US Person you are contractually prohibited from holding it at all. The deepest market in crypto is not the same thing as a claim you can enforce.
TU
TUSD (TrueUSD)
53#11 of 11
Pick it when
TUSD (TrueUSD) leads USDT (Tether) on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
Strength
Redemption right exercised — 3/10
Tradeoff
That the reserve backing it holds zero US Treasury Bills. TUSD's own assurance report, dated 19 August 2026 and signed by Moore CPA Limited, lists 'US Treasury Bills $0', '$78,900.88' of cash, and $501,850,000 — 99.98% — as a single balance at First Digital Trust Limited, which the same report says 'has invested all or substantially all of the collateral in other instruments to generate yield, which cannot be readily convertible to cash, and are subject to ongoing legal proceedings.' Techteryx has a worldwide freezing order from the DIFC Courts over up to US$456 million and says it has arranged separate 'alternative liquidity' so that tokens 'in public circulation' can still be redeemed — while the same report discloses that 412,585,497.92 of the 494,515,082.75 tokens issued are held by Techteryx itself. A close second: the Terms of Use you agree to name no company at all — 'Company' is defined as 'us', and a search of the full Terms for 'Ltd', 'Limited', 'LLC', 'Inc.' and 'Techteryx' returns zero hits — and those same Terms state that 'the Company does not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of TrueUSD tokens for US Dollars.'
Self-identify in 10 seconds
Which one is actually for you?
USDT (Tether)Leads
Choose USDT (Tether) if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most
Counterparty and insolvency rank: 2/10 against 1/10 for TUSD (TrueUSD) (weight 30)
Seizure and upgrade authority: 5/10 against 3/10 for TUSD (TrueUSD) (weight 18)
USDT (Tether)Score 57The largest fiat-reserve stablecoin, issued by El Salvador-authorised Tether International, S.A. de C.V. under terms still governed by British Virgin Islands law — terms that expressly disclaim segregation and insurance, make the redemption right "personal to you" rather than attached to the token, gate par redemption behind a 100,000 USD minimum and a $1,000 floor fee, and whose quarterly ISAE 3000R assurance shows a quarter of the reserve in gold, bitcoin, equities, secured loans and an "Other Investments" bucket defined only as everything that is not the other categories.Strength: Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10Watch-out: That there is no such thing as "your" dollar at Tether — and, for almost everyone reading this, no such thing as your redemption right either. The buyer's mental model is a segregated dollar held for them, redeemable on demand. The binding terms say the opposite twice over. Balances are "not segregated assets held in your name or for your benefit but reflected only in the books and records of Tether"; the reserve is defined as every asset the company owns rather than a ring-fence carved out for holders; the claim is booked as an IFRS 9 "refund liability", an unsecured payable. And the exit is not a property of the token: "The right to purchase Tether Tokens or have Tether Tokens redeemed is a contractual right personal to you" — unlike USDC's terms, which assign the right onward to "any subsequent Holder", Tether's right belongs to the verified customer who contracted for it and does not travel with the coin you bought on an exchange. Four things compound it. (1) Even for that customer the exit is gated: 100,000 USD minimum to redeem and a fee of "The greater of $1,000 or 0.1%", which is 1.0% at that minimum, not the advertised 0.1%. (2) A quarter of the reserve — US$47.1bn of gold, bitcoin, equities, corporate bonds, an unnamed US$13.45bn secured-loan book and a US$5.24bn "Other Investments" bucket defined only as whatever fits no other row — sits behind an equity buffer of US$4.11bn that just shrank 35% on a US$3.17bn half-year loss, with no custodian named anywhere and an unprovisioned New York class action disclosed on the same page. (3) The contract is construed as a British Virgin Islands contract even though the issuer redomiciled to El Salvador, so the register entry and the governing law point at different jurisdictions. (4) If you are a US Person you are contractually prohibited from holding it at all. The deepest market in crypto is not the same thing as a claim you can enforce.
TUTUSD (TrueUSD)
TUSD (TrueUSD) leads USDT (Tether) on no published criterion
Choose it only if something outside the published criteria decides for you — your country, a funding rail, or custody.
TUSD (TrueUSD)Score 53A live stablecoin whose binding Terms of Use name no legal entity and expressly do not guarantee redemption, and whose own same-day assurance report — reasonable assurance under ISAE 3000 (Revised), signed by Moore CPA Limited — shows US Treasury Bills of $0 and 99.98% of the reserve sitting as a single at-cost balance at First Digital Trust Limited that the report says 'cannot be readily convertible to cash' and is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.Strength: Redemption right exercised — 3/10Watch-out: That the reserve backing it holds zero US Treasury Bills. TUSD's own assurance report, dated 19 August 2026 and signed by Moore CPA Limited, lists 'US Treasury Bills $0', '$78,900.88' of cash, and $501,850,000 — 99.98% — as a single balance at First Digital Trust Limited, which the same report says 'has invested all or substantially all of the collateral in other instruments to generate yield, which cannot be readily convertible to cash, and are subject to ongoing legal proceedings.' Techteryx has a worldwide freezing order from the DIFC Courts over up to US$456 million and says it has arranged separate 'alternative liquidity' so that tokens 'in public circulation' can still be redeemed — while the same report discloses that 412,585,497.92 of the 494,515,082.75 tokens issued are held by Techteryx itself. A close second: the Terms of Use you agree to name no company at all — 'Company' is defined as 'us', and a search of the full Terms for 'Ltd', 'Limited', 'LLC', 'Inc.' and 'Techteryx' returns zero hits — and those same Terms state that 'the Company does not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of TrueUSD tokens for US Dollars.'
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 86USDT (Tether) leads
USDT (Tether)2/10 out of 10
TUSD (TrueUSD)1/10 out of 10
Redemption right exercised
weight 6.7 of 86Tie
USDT (Tether)3/10 out of 10
TUSD (TrueUSD)3/10 out of 10
Reserve and assurance scope
weight 5.8 of 86Tie
USDT (Tether)2/10 out of 10
TUSD (TrueUSD)2/10 out of 10
Seizure and upgrade authority
by 2 of 10weight 4.3 of 86USDT (Tether) leads
USDT (Tether)5/10 out of 10
TUSD (TrueUSD)3/10 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
USDT (Tether)14/20TUSD (TrueUSD)14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
USDT (Tether)6.8/30TUSD (TrueUSD)5.2/30
USDT (Tether) leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
USDT (Tether)2.7/10TUSD (TrueUSD)2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
USDT (Tether)3.2/8TUSD (TrueUSD)3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
USDT (Tether)8.3/18TUSD (TrueUSD)8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order
Choose USDT (Tether) unless the term TUSD (TrueUSD) leads on is the one you are buying.
TUSD (TrueUSD) leads USDT (Tether) on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
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% (USDT (Tether) 5/10, TUSD (TrueUSD) 3/10)
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% (USDT (Tether) 2/10, TUSD (TrueUSD) 1/10)
Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (USDT (Tether) 2/10, TUSD (TrueUSD) 2/10)
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% (USDT (Tether) 3/10, TUSD (TrueUSD) 3/10)
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
USDT (Tether) scores 4 points above TUSD (TrueUSD), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and seizure and upgrade authority. Published scores, out of 100: USDT (Tether) 57 (rank 6 of 11 stablecoins), TUSD (TrueUSD) 53 (rank 11 of 11).
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.
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