The Book · 27 Jul 2026
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The dollar stack

USDG and the dollar stack

USDG is a Paxos-issued, 1:1 dollar-backed stablecoin under the Global Dollar Network, and the dominant dollar on Robinhood Chain — around 68% of stablecoin supply. Why a Robinhood chain defaults to the Global Dollar Network's coin.

6 min read · Updated 2026-07-13

The dollar that runs the chain

USDG is a 1:1 US-dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos, and the dominant dollar on Robinhood Chain — roughly 68% of the chain's ~$300m stablecoin supply in early July 2026. It is the settlement asset behind Robinhood Earn and a primary quote asset across the chain's DEXs. Its canonical address on the chain is 0x5fc5360D0400a0Fd4f2af552ADD042D716F1d168.

On a chain built around tokenised equities, a reliable dollar is the other half of every pair: you price a Stock Token in something, and here that something is usually USDG.

The Global Dollar Network

USDG is not just any Paxos coin — it is the shared asset of the Global Dollar Network (GDN), a consortium Paxos launched in November 2024 with partners including Robinhood, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, and Nuvei. The network's distinguishing feature is economic: it shares stablecoin revenue with the platforms that distribute and hold USDG, rather than the issuer keeping all the reserve yield.

That model is why a Robinhood-operated chain defaults to USDG. Robinhood is a GDN member; routing its chain's dollars through USDG aligns the coin's economics with the platform carrying it. The dollar stack is a business decision as much as a technical one.

The rest of the stack

USDG is the anchor, but not the whole dollar-and-base-asset layer. Robinhood Wrapped ETH (WETH), at 0x0Bd7D308f8E1639FAb988df18A8011f41EAcAD73, is the ERC-20 form of the gas token and the base of most ETH-denominated liquidity. Other stablecoins circulate too, but USDG's dominance means the chain's dollar liquidity is concentrated in one coin.

That concentration is worth naming plainly. A single dominant stablecoin is efficient — deep pairs, simple routing — but it also ties much of the chain's dollar liquidity to one issuer's reserves and one network's economics. It is a strength and a dependency at the same time.

On the record in this article


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Citations

Sources

  1. [1]Paxos Newsroom — Introducing the Global Dollar Network
  2. [2]Global Dollar Network
  3. [3]Robinhood Chain Docs — Contract registry (USDG address)

HoodL2 is a neutral, sourced reference. Every claim above is drawn from the cited sources; where a detail is uncertain it is omitted rather than guessed.


Answer-first

Frequently asked

What is USDG?
USDG is a 1:1 US-dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos and the shared asset of the Global Dollar Network. On Robinhood Chain it is the dominant dollar — around 68% of stablecoin supply in early July 2026 — and the settlement asset behind Robinhood Earn.
Why does Robinhood Chain use USDG rather than USDC or USDT?
Robinhood is a member of the Global Dollar Network, whose model shares stablecoin revenue with distributing platforms. Routing the chain's dollars through USDG aligns the coin's economics with Robinhood, which is why it is the default dollar on a Robinhood-operated chain.
Who backs and issues USDG?
Paxos issues USDG and holds the 1:1 dollar reserves, under the Global Dollar Network it launched in November 2024 with partners including Robinhood, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, and Nuvei.