SoFi Bank launched SoFiUSD on a public blockchain

SoFi Technologies announced on December 18, 2025 that SoFi Bank, N.A. had launched SoFiUSD, a U.S. dollar stablecoin issued by the nationally chartered bank. The company said the token was available for internal settlement activity and described it as the first stablecoin issued by a U.S. national bank on a public, permissionless blockchain. Contemporaneous reports from Bloomberg and The Block identified the initial network as Ethereum.

The development mattered because it moved stablecoin issuance inside a full-service bank rather than a crypto-native issuer or a purpose-built trust company. That change in institutional form did not eliminate stablecoin risk, but it placed the issuer within the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s national-bank supervisory perimeter.

What launched—and what did not

SoFi said SoFiUSD was fully reserved one-for-one with cash and immediately redeemable. Those were issuer representations on December 18, not conclusions from a published independent reserve attestation. The announcement did not disclose an Ethereum contract address, circulating supply, reserve balance, redemption volume, named outside customer or audited transaction count. Coinburn therefore cannot independently quantify the launch-day scale from the reviewed event-day record.

The available-use distinction is equally important. SoFi said the token was operating for internal settlement on December 18. Broader availability to SoFi members was expected “in the coming months,” while banks, fintech companies and enterprise platforms were invited to explore integrations or white-label stablecoins. Those future uses were plans, not completed deployments. Claims about card-network settlement, remittances, point-of-sale payments and access through SoFi’s Galileo platform likewise described intended applications rather than verified launch-day traffic.

Bloomberg’s contemporaneous account reported that the bank had begun issuing SoFiUSD, held cash reserves against it and was using it internally. The Block separately reported the Ethereum deployment. Neither report supplied a launch-day supply figure or an independently audited reserve statement.

Why a bank-issued stablecoin mattered

A stablecoin is a transferable liability designed to track a reference asset—in this case the U.S. dollar—across blockchain rails. The core promise depends on the issuer’s ability and willingness to redeem, the quality and availability of reserves, operational controls around minting and burning, and the security and availability of the network and smart contracts. The launch release described SoFi Bank as an insured depository institution; it did not state that SoFiUSD tokens themselves carried deposit insurance.

SoFi’s institutional pitch was settlement. Conventional payment and treasury processes can be constrained by operating hours and chains of intermediaries. A token on a public blockchain can move outside normal banking windows, but the full payment still depends on off-chain issuance, redemption, compliance screening and accounting. On December 18, SoFi had established an internal use case, not demonstrated broad replacement of existing payment rails.

The structure also sharpened competition between banks and existing stablecoin issuers. The significance was not a measured change in stablecoin market share on December 18; no such event-day figure was disclosed. It was the entrance of an OCC-regulated insured depository institution as the direct issuer of an open-network dollar token.

The regulatory setting on December 18

The OCC had said on March 7, 2025 that national banks could engage in certain stablecoin and distributed-ledger payment activities without first obtaining a supervisory non-objection, while remaining responsible for safe, sound and lawful operation. That policy supplied important context for SoFi’s launch, but it was not an OCC endorsement of SoFiUSD’s economics, code or future adoption.

Congress had also enacted the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025. Its payment-stablecoin framework was not yet effective on December 18: the statute set effectiveness for the earlier of January 18, 2027 or 120 days after federal regulators issued final implementing rules. The launch therefore should not be described as proof of compliance with a fully implemented future regime.

The verified December 18 milestone is narrow but consequential: SoFi Bank began issuing and internally using an issuer-described, cash-backed stablecoin on Ethereum. Reserve attestations, contract-level data, redemption performance and named production customers remained the next tests.