satUSD

Overview

How satUSD is created

satUSD is minted as debt against crypto collateral. Borrowers lock BTC or BTC liquid staking tokens and draw satUSD against the position. River runs the contracts. Its site describes satUSD as an over-collateralized stablecoin backed by BTC, ETH, BNB and other liquid staking tokens, holding a $1 peg through real-time liquidation, on-chain arbitrage and five layers of risk control.

V2 and cross-chain supply

The V2 launch post reframed satUSD as a universal Bitcoin-backed stablecoin and put the upgrade live in mid-February 2025. satUSD adopts LayerZero's OFT standard, which debits the token on a source chain and credits it on a destination chain, so one supply circulates across networks without a third-party bridge. The peg target is the US dollar.

Sources: River official site, satUSD product description, River blog, Introducing Satoshi Protocol V2

Backing and reserves

What the documentation sets out

River documents parameters, not holdings. The risk management page sets a Minimum Collateral Ratio of 110% and gives per-asset loan-to-value figures of 90.91% for BTC and 65% for LST collateral. Liquidation is permissionless once a position falls below 110%, and the liquidator takes 0.25% of the liquidated collateral plus gas compensation. Minting costs the base rate plus 0.5%, floored at 0.5% and capped at 5%, with a 2 satUSD gas reserve and a 0% interest fee.

What is not published

No attestation, reserve report or collateral breakdown appears on River's site or in its documentation. The V1 app displays satUSD circulation and a protocol collateral ratio, and the fetched page source carries no values, so no ratio is quoted here. River's documentation links an audit report repository holding nine PDF reports whose filenames name Billh, Scalebit, Supremacy, Zenith and Zellic. The documentation page linking that repository names no firm, no scope and no date, and the PDFs themselves were not opened for this page.

Sources: River docs, Risk Management (MCR, liquidation, LTVs), River docs, Minting satUSD (fees, gas reserve), River docs, Audit Reports page, Satoshi Protocol audit report repository (file listing)

Peg behaviour

DIA's registry prices satUSD at $0.9951. Redemption sets the floor. Holders can redeem satUSD for collateral, and the protocol takes that collateral from the least collateralized positions first, at a cost of the base rate plus 0.5%. Two conditions gate it: the Total Collateral Ratio must be above 110%, and redemptions were closed for the first 14 days after launch.

Sources: River docs, Redemption and Price Stability

Where it is used

River's swap interface exchanges satUSD at a fixed 1:1 ratio for USDT, USDC and USD1, and points users at USDT pools on PancakeSwap for depth. Staking satUSD returns satUSD+, an ERC-20 that accrues protocol revenue rather than paying a claimable rate. That revenue comes from minting, redemption and liquidation fees in the Omni-CDP module, from satUSD adoption across chains, and from integrations River lists as future, including lending markets.

Sources: River docs, Swap satUSD, River docs, satUSD+

Risks

The buffer

Collateral is BTC and liquid staking tokens. A 110% minimum leaves ten cents of margin per dollar of debt. River's own minting page tells borrowers to sit well above that, ideally over 150%.

Under stress

Recovery Mode triggers when the Total Collateral Ratio drops below 150%. Positions below 150% become eligible for liquidation, new minting is restricted to positions at 150% or higher, and the minting fee is set to 0%. Redemption, the mechanism that holds the floor, is available only while the Total Collateral Ratio is above 110%.

Cross-chain supply

satUSD crosses chains through LayerZero's OFT standard, debiting on the source chain and crediting on the destination so that total supply stays consistent across networks.

Sources: River docs, Recovery Mode, River docs, Minting satUSD (collateral ratio guidance), River blog, Introducing Satoshi Protocol V2 (LayerZero OFT)

What this map tracks

What the map reads

The Global Stablecoin Map reads satUSD contracts on five EVM chains: BNB Chain, Base, Arbitrum, Ethereum and Sonic. Those reads sum to about 133.3 million satUSD. BNB Chain carries 81.4 million of that, Base 32.7 million, Arbitrum 10.8 million, Ethereum 8.4 million and Sonic 34,663. The registry price is $0.9951. The registry files satUSD under global.

What it does not read

The registry lists bitcoin among satUSD's chains and the map holds no contract address there, so no Bitcoin-side balance is in that total. The registry's circulating value of $158.7 million runs roughly $26 million above the dollar value of the five-chain sum, and that difference sits on networks the map does not read. The registry holder count is 956, while a Blockscout read of the Base contract alone returned about 13,500 addresses, so 956 is not a cross-chain total. The Ethereum contract reads Satoshi Stablecoin. The Base contract reads Satoshi Stablecoin V2.

Sources: Blockscout API, satUSD token on Base, Blockscout API, satUSD token on Ethereum

Common questions