Justin Sun attacked, FDUSD deaned: Will FDT be the number one thunder in 2025?

Author: Scof, ChainCatcher

Edited by: TB, ChainCatcher

The cryptocurrency market is once again stirred by the "deaning" incident of stablecoins.

The protagonist of this time is FDUSD, a stablecoin issued by Hong Kong trust First Digital Trust (FDT) and anchored the US dollar by the 1:1 US dollar. In just one hour, the price of FDUSD fell from US$1 to US$0.97, and the lowest was approaching US$0.88, and its market value evaporated by hundreds of millions of dollars. What is more interesting is that what caused this storm was not technical loopholes or external attacks, but an "unrealized" accusation on social media.

Event Review: Justin Sun’s ****words triggered the

anchor****

On the evening of April 2, Sun Yuchen, a well-known figure in the crypto industry, posted a tweet on social platform X, saying that FDUSD's issuer FDT has actually gone bankrupt and is "unable to repay", implying that it may be insolvent. This remark spread rapidly in crypto communities and market sentiment deteriorated sharply. Just one minute later, FDUSD's price quickly fell below $1 on the Binance Exchange, and market panic spread.

Investors began to sell FDUSD in large quantities, and some users even experienced panic changes in positions. Within an hour, the trading volume of FDUSD/USDT trading pairs reached 770 million pieces and the transaction volume was US$745 million. The market fell into chaos for a while.

It is reported that FDUSD is often used in Binance's Launchpool project, and users can mine new token rewards by locking FDUSD. At the same time, FDUSD is also the main alternative to Binance's native stablecoin BUSD.

Faced with the FDUSD dean incident, FDT, the issuer of FDUSD, issued a statement in the early morning of the same day, firmly denied the bankruptcy rumors, saying that its reserve assets were sufficient, and all FDUSDs were supported by cash or US Treasury bonds, which fully met the 1:1 anchoring requirement. FDT also emphasized that the root cause of this problem is not FDUSD, but a reserve dispute over another stablecoin TUSD.

In addition, Binance member SiSi responded in a user group: "FDUSD can accept 1:1" and pointed out what this is. Although this was not an official public statement, the news spread rapidly in the community and the price of FDUSD also rebounded to around $0.98.

According to the reserve fund proof data of First Digital Trust official website, as of February 2025, FDT's reserve assets were approximately US$2.05 billion, while FDUSD's circulation was 2.04 billion, with a reserve coverage rate of more than 100%. From the books, FDT "is not short of money."

****Deep background: What’s the old account between Justin Sun and

FDT?****

This storm surrounding FDUSD is actually a continuation of an old account.

This is not the first time that FDT has been named by Justin Sun. Previously, FDT was sued by Techteryx for serious problems in managing TUSD (TrueUSD) reserves. Some of TUSD's reserve funds were transferred to the unauthorized entity Aria Commodities DMCC during the FDT custody period, causing nearly $500 million in funding vacancy. In the end, Justin Sun came forward to provide emergency liquidity support for TUSD in the form of a loan, filling the gap.

This "help" was obviously not given in vain. Justin Sun then began to question FDT's assets security, accusing its management of being chaotic and opaque, and even directly said that FDT "can no longer be redeemed." FDT insists that it is just a custodian and that all operations are carried out according to Techteryx's instructions, and in turn accuses Justin Sun of trying to attack his competitors through smearing means.

Mirror Tang, a well-known industry analyst, pointed out that this type of "regulatory black hole" misappropriation is not just an operational mistake, but a manifestation of the structural risks of stablecoins. He warned that the market now has expectations for Binance to redeem, but once there is a problem with the underlying assets themselves, the platform will use credit to provide a short-term relief, which will magnify moral risks in the long run. He said bluntly: "The platform's credit is not unlimited. If it is kidnapped by projects again and again, the consequences will be extremely serious."

In addition, TUSD has had redemption difficulties many times in the past year, and its original operator TrueCoin also reached a $500,000 settlement with the SEC for suspected false advertising. The combined combination of negative news has intensified the market's concerns about the overall credit of FDT.

Who is FDT?

First Digital Trust (FDT for short) is the issuer and reserve trustee of FDUSD. It was founded and CEO by Vincent Chok. He was the head of Legacy Trust. He was engaged in Canadian real estate financing in his early years and was also active in the crypto assets field, promoting the issuance of FDUSD.

COO Gunnar Jaerv is mainly responsible for technology and products. He was once responsible for digital asset business at Legacy Trust. He is a key figure in the company's technical architecture.

According to public data, FDT's parent company is First Digital Group, which is also headquartered in Hong Kong. The company dates back to Legacy Trust, founded in 1992, a family office agency dedicated to high net worth clients.

FDT was actually part of Legacy Trust's digital asset custody business, providing a complete set of solutions including digital asset custody, trust services, API payment channels and stablecoin issuance management. FDUSD issuer FD121 Limited is also one of the First Digital Group subsidiaries.

In the crypto industry, FDT belongs to the category of "mixed-blood" companies that have both traditional financial backgrounds and blockchain dividends. Public information shows that FDT completed a round of US$20 million in May 2022. Participants include Nogle (an early stage investor in Telegram) and Kenetic Capital, a local blockchain venture capitalist in Hong Kong.

Although the amount is not large, from the background, FDT may connect crypto capital and high net worth resources in the Asia-Pacific region.

Although it has returned to the anchor ,

there are still many doubts

As of press time, according to Lookonchain monitoring, market maker Wintermute has bought more than 30 million FDUSDs at US$0.9, making a profit of more than 3 million US dollars.

Although FDUSD returns to anchor in a short period of time, there are still many doubts behind this anchor dean incident. The most core question is: Does FDT have the ability to repay? This trust institution that issues stablecoins has extremely limited public information and has not even disclosed the audit report.

Justin Sun said "insolvent", while FDT responded that it was "completely false", but did not disclose the specific asset composition and the liquidity status of the outside world cannot verify it. Investors can only make their own judgments in the information vacuum, and the price of judgment is often emotional panic and selling.

On the other hand, FDUSD is now widely adopted by Binance and has long replaced BUSD as one of the main stablecoins. Once FDT really has liquidity problems, its impact will far exceed FDUSD itself, which may cause a systemic impact to the entire market. The chain reaction caused by the LUNA thunder is still vivid in my mind. The market's trust in stablecoins is already in danger. FDUSD's storm this time is like sounding the alarm bell again.

If a stablecoin wants to be stable, it depends not only on asset reserves, but also on the boundaries of institutional transparency, information equality and discourse power. In the current storm, what investors need most is not a empty comfort, but a clear, verifiable and accountable mechanism.

Crypto KOL YuYue also pointed out that in the face of such a large-scale stablecoin storm, Binance did not respond through the official announcement. Instead, employees spoke scattered in WeChat groups and only responded to some large groups, which triggered doubts about information asymmetry and even "de facto insider trading". What is even more controversial is that the words of the core employees of the platform at critical moments are enough to affect the market trend. Should such speeches be subject to stricter constraints? As an exchange deeply bound to FDUSD, is Binance responsible for proactive investigation and public response?

In the "eventful autumn", will FDT become the "No. 1 Thunder" in 2025? ChainCatcher will continue to follow up and report on subsequent related content.