Tetra Trust Company, a Canadian digital technology and financial services provider, has launched CADD, a Canadian dollar stablecoin approved by the Ministry of Finance and Finance of the Province of Alberta.
The company said it is the first Canadian dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution in Canada. The company said reserves are held in trust under Canadian law and are earmarked for redemptions. The token is already listed on major blockchains, including Base, Ethereum, and Tempo, with Solana support planned.
Calgary, Alberta-based Tetra raised $10 million for the project in September 2025 and is backed by Shopify, Wealthsimple, Purpose Unlimited, Shakepay, ATB Financial, National Bank of Canada and majority-owned Urbana Corporation. The same consortium is also backing the launch.
In December, Tetra ran a testnet transaction between Wealthsimple and National Bank. The transfer is the first time a Canadian stablecoin has been transferred between two financial institutions, the company said.
Tetra positions CADD for institutional use cases, including 24/7 cross-border settlement, real-time corporate financial transfers, programmable marketplace payments, and direct fintech-to-fintech settlement without correspondent bank delays.
$320 billion market
The launch comes as no surprise, as the stablecoin industry has grown exponentially in recent years but lacks a meaningful, regulated Canadian counterpart.
The company said Canada clears about $424 billion every working day on legacy railroads, which still rely on bulk infrastructure first deployed in the 1980s. While the U.S. is driving the stablecoin industry through regulation, Canadian businesses lack domestic options for moving Canadian dollars on the blockchain, leading to the dominance of U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins.
Global stablecoin transaction volume will exceed US$27 trillion in 2025, exceeding Visa’s annual payment volume. According to DeFiLlama data, the current market value of stablecoins is US$320 billion, of which US dollar stablecoins account for the largest share.
At the same time, the country’s competitive environment is slim.
Stablecorp, with support from Coinbase Ventures, submitted a preliminary prospectus for QCAD to the Ontario Securities Commission last June and received final approval in December. The coin is not yet widely used.
There’s also Loon, a Calgary company that spun out of Paytrie in October and is taking over CADC, a stablecoin launched in 2021 that has surpassed $200 million in processing volume. Loon raised $3 million in pre-seed funding and pre-filed a prospectus with the Alberta Securities Commission.
Tetra Trust is Canada’s first regulated digital asset custodian, providing custody of the country’s first staking-enabled Ethereum and Solana ETFs.