Coin columns · Ethereum City (Capital)
AUSD: Agora’s Dollar Stablecoin Backed by Cash and T-Bills
A coin whose reserves State Street holds and VanEck manages
AUSD is a stablecoin (a coin designed to stay at one US dollar) issued by the US startup Agora. Its reserves are cash and short-term US Treasury securities, held by State Street and managed by the asset manager VanEck.
1. Issued by Agora, backed by VanEck and State Street
Agora was co-founded by Nick van Eck (CEO), Drake Evans (CTO) and Joe McGrady (COO). Van Eck has been described in the press as the son of VanEck’s CEO, and Agora also provides infrastructure that lets banks, fintechs and wallets launch stablecoins under their own brands.
AUSD is designed to be exchangeable one-for-one with the dollar, and its reserves sit in the Agora Reserve Fund. The fund holds cash, short-term US Treasuries and overnight repurchase agreements (a one-day loan secured by securities), with State Street as custodian and fund administrator and VanEck as investment manager. On the Crypto Nation map, AUSD stands in Ethereum City (the capital), because Ethereum is where it was first issued.
2. Dollars in, tokens out, and back again
Institutional customers send dollars to Agora and receive the same amount of AUSD, and returning AUSD gets dollars back. Ordinary users usually buy and sell AUSD through exchanges or wallets. Because minting and redemption stay open, a market price that drifts away from one dollar should create trading opportunities that pull it back.
AUSD is issued on many blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. Agora publishes monthly reports on its reserves and describes its design as compliance-first. How the reserves are actually managed, however, is something users still have to check through these disclosures and outside verification.
3. Where it is used, and what happened
AUSD serves as trading and payment dollars in decentralized finance (DeFi) and on exchanges, and aims to be a dollar token that institutions can use for cross-border transfers and payments. In April 2024 Agora raised a seed round of about $12 million led by Dragonfly, with Wintermute, Galaxy Digital and Kraken Ventures taking part.
In mid-2025 it raised a Series A of about $50 million led by Paradigm. In July 2025 the United States passed the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin law that began to set reserve and disclosure standards for issuers. Agora is expanding its business for institutional clients in this setting.
4. Things to know
A stablecoin is not a bank deposit and has no deposit insurance; its one-dollar value depends on the quality of the reserves and on redemptions working. AUSD arrived long after Tether’s USDT and USDC and is relatively small, so trading can thin out when markets are stressed. Reliance on particular custodians and managers, and on a single private issuer, is a structural risk too.
In 2025 a stablecoin safety comparison published by the custody firm Anchorage Digital rated AUSD poorly, and Nick van Eck publicly disputed it. US stablecoin rules are still being refined, so issuer requirements could change as details and timing are settled.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.