Canada just got its first regulated digital dollar to take on the U.S. stablecoin’s crypto dominance

Tetra Trust Company, a Canadian digital technology and financial services provider, launched CADD, a Canadian-dollar stablecoin approved by Alberta Treasury Board and Finance.

The company said it’s the first CAD-pegged stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution in Canada. Reserves are held in trust under Canadian law and dedicated to redemption, according to the firm. The token is live on major blockchains, including Base, Ethereum and Tempo, with Solana support planned.

The Calgary, Alberta-based Tetra raised $10 million for the project in September 2025, with backing from Shopify, Wealthsimple, Purpose Unlimited, Shakepay, ATB Financial, National Bank of Canada and Urbana Corporation, which holds a majority stake. The same consortium is also supporting the launch.

In December, Tetra ran testnet transactions between Wealthsimple and National Bank. The transfer was the first time a Canadian stablecoin moved between two financial institutions, the firm said.

Tetra positioned CADD for institutional use cases, including 24/7 cross-border settlement, real-time corporate treasury transfers, programmable marketplace payouts, and direct fintech-to-fintech settlement without the delays of correspondent banking.

A $320 billion market

The launch isn’t a surprise, as the stablecoin sector has grown exponentially in recent years but lacked a meaningful, regulated Canadian counterpart.

Canada clears roughly $424 billion per business day on legacy rails that are still dependent on batch infrastructure first deployed in the 1980s, the firm said. While the U.S. is pushing to grow the stablecoin sector through regulation, Canadian businesses have lacked a domestic option for moving CAD on blockchains, leaving USD-denominated stablecoins to dominate.

Global stablecoin transaction volume passed $27 trillion in 2025, exceeding Visa’s annual payment volume. The current stablecoin market cap is $320 billion, with the lion’s share accounted for by USD stablecoins, according to DeFiLlama.

Meanwhile, the competitive set in the country is small.

Stablecorp, backed by Coinbase Ventures, filed a preliminary prospectus for QCAD with the Ontario Securities Commission in June last year and received final approval in December. The token is not yet broadly available.

There is also Loon, a Calgary firm spun out of Paytrie in October, that is taking over CADC, a stablecoin launched in 2021 that has processed more than $200 million in volume. Loon raised $3 million pre-seed and pre-filed a prospectus with the Alberta Securities Commission.

Tetra Trust was Canada’s first regulated digital asset custodian and provides custody for the country’s first staking-enabled ether and solana ETFs.