If we compare the global financial system to a heavily guarded digital fortress filled with sensors, then the vast majority of stablecoins are merely "licensed stalls" within this fortress. While USDT and USDC are grand in scale, they are essentially regulated assets that breathe and respond to freezing orders. The existence of USDD is more like an underground conduit bypassing the city walls. In 2025, when we talk about USDD's adversaries, if we still focus on those centralized fiat-collateralized tokens, we are underestimating this covert battle over liquidity. The true opponent of USDD is the digital currencies — CBDCs — that central banks around the world are accelerating and attempting to reshape sovereignty with.
This judgment is not alarmist. In the macro context of 2025, the reshuffling of the cryptocurrency market has long been completed, and the real confrontation occurs between 'programmable freedom' and 'programmable will.'
First, we need to peel back the technical core of USDD in 2025. Early USDD was questioned as a replica of Terra, but after three years of iteration, it has evolved into a highly over-collateralized 'hybrid racing car.' Currently, USDD's collateral pool not only includes BTC and TRX but also deeply integrates a large number of on-chain certificates of real-world assets (RWA). Its collateral rate of over 200% has shown rock-like stability amidst extreme price fluctuations. This stability does not come from legal documents but from the immutable logic of on-chain smart contracts.
In contrast, what is CBDC? It is a digital extension of national power. The original intention of CBDC design is to improve payment efficiency, but its byproduct is 'God's view' financial regulation. The flow of every fund and every consumption preference is transparent in the CBDC ledger. What USDD represents is the 'anonymous liquidity highway' built on the high-frequency, low-cost network of TRON. For hundreds of millions of retail users in regions facing hyperinflation or cross-border payment bottlenecks, what they need is not a digitized domestic currency, but a 'hard currency pocket' that can cross borders and cannot be arbitrarily frozen.
From a market positioning perspective, USDD is becoming the 'digital offshore RMB' or 'digital offshore USD' for emerging markets. According to on-chain data for the fourth quarter of 2025, the daily settlement volume of USDD on the TRON network has stabilized at the level of billions, especially in cross-border trade scenarios in Southeast Asia and Africa. Merchants in these regions do not care about the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike cycle; what they care about is whether the money I receive can be converted into BTC or withdrawn as local cash at a very low cost in five minutes. This 'capillary-level' penetration is exactly the gray area that CBDC tries to incorporate through official bilateral agreements but finds difficult to reach.
From an economic model perspective, CBDC is debt with zero or even negative interest rates, while USDD is a liquidity engine with inherent yield attributes. In the decentralized finance ecosystem, USDD provides holders with compounding opportunities far exceeding traditional savings through lending, staking, and providing liquidity across different protocols. This 'financial Lego' style of combinatorial ability makes CBDC seem cumbersome and closed. CBDC is a shopping voucher that can only be spent in specific stores, while USDD is a universal key to the entire Web3 financial building.
However, the risk points in this competition are equally sharp. Behind CBDC is sovereign credit and coercion, which can easily label unofficial stablecoins as 'illegal fundraising' or 'money laundering tools' through legislative means. The biggest challenge facing USDD is not whether its collateral is sufficient, but how it can maintain the smoothness of its 'inlet and outlet' when the digital iron curtain falls in various countries.
For investors and users, the survival strategy for 2025 needs to shift from simple 'speculating on cryptocurrencies' to 'liquidity defense.' What we need to focus on is no longer just price fluctuations, but the 'resilience of assets.'
Specific operational recommendations are as follows: First, monitor the diversification of USDD's collateral. If RWA (real-world assets) account for too high a proportion of the collateral, although it enhances stability, it also increases the risk of confiscation by the physical world. Second, use the synergistic effect of TRX and USDD for hedging. As the 'energy' of the TRON ecosystem, TRX will exhibit strong deflationary characteristics when USDD demand expands. Third, pay attention to the activity of cross-chain interoperability protocols (such as BTTC). The vitality of USDD lies in its ability to freely traverse between different public chains, avoiding the blockade of any single jurisdiction.
Looking to the future, CBDC will build digital 'financial islands,' while decentralized stablecoins like USDD will play the role of submarines connecting these islands. This is not just a competition between tokens; it is a collision of two financial civilizations. One is a centralized system pursuing absolute control, and the other is a decentralized network pursuing spontaneous order. In this game, USDD does not need to defeat CBDC; it only needs to prove that in corners where power does not shine, code can still carry value.
In this era full of uncertainties, choosing USDD or choosing CBDC is essentially choosing the cornerstone of your trust in the future. Do you trust the documents with seals, or the openly transparent and continuously operational smart contract code?
This article is an independent personal analysis and does not constitute investment advice.
