Tetra Digital Group launched CADD on May 4, 2026 — the first Canadian-dollar stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution. Backed by a consortium that includes National Bank of Canada, Shopify, Wealthsimple, ATB Financial, Shakepay, Purpose Unlimited, and majority stakeholder Urbana Cor...
"We need a competitive offering as Canadians." — Didier Lavallée, Founder & CEO, Tetra Digital Group
Tetra Digital Group launched CADD on May 4, 2026 — the first Canadian-dollar stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution. Backed by a consortium that includes National Bank of Canada, Shopify, Wealthsimple, ATB Financial, Shakepay, Purpose Unlimited, and majority stakeholder Urbana Corporation, the token is live on Base, Ethereum, and Tempo, with Solana deployment planned.
CADD enters a $321 billion global stablecoin market in which USD-pegged tokens hold over 90% share. Canada processes over $400 billion per business day in clearings, yet its domestic digital-asset economy has operated almost entirely on American stablecoins — forcing users and institutions to absorb FX conversion spreads of 2–5% on every transaction. Tetra's bet: a regulated CAD on-ramp eliminates that friction for institutional settlement, corporate treasury, and fintech-to-fintech payments.
The launch arrives months before Canada's federal Stablecoin Act — enacted via Bill C-15 in March 2026 — takes effect, expected no earlier than mid-February 2027. CADD currently operates under Alberta Treasury Board and Finance approval. A second CAD stablecoin, QCAD (Stablecorp), received prospectus approval in November 2025 but has not yet launched its regulated product. A third, CADC, acquired by Loon in October 2025, has processed over $200 million in volume since 2021 but lacks trust-company backing.
CADD is issued by Tetra Trust Company through its agent, CAD Digital Inc. The token is pegged 1:1 to the Canadian dollar and is redeemable at par.
The multi-chain deployment strategy is structured around function:
In December 2025, Tetra completed testnet transactions between Wealthsimple and National Bank of Canada — described as the first time a Canadian stablecoin moved between two financial institutions. The production launch on May 4, 2026 followed roughly five months of testing after the original Q1 2026 target.
Target use cases are explicitly institutional: 24/7 cross-border settlement, real-time corporate treasury transfers, programmable marketplace payouts, and direct fintech-to-fintech settlement without correspondent banking intermediaries.
CADD reserves are held exclusively within Canadian financial institutions, including tier-one banks. The reserve structure requires:
Tetra Trust has operated as a licensed digital asset custodian for over five years, conducting similar audit processes for its custody business. The extension of that framework to stablecoin reserves represents an attempt to import traditional trust-company governance into the stablecoin issuance model.
The prohibition on yield is notable. Canada's federal Stablecoin Act explicitly bars issuers from granting or paying interest to token holders — a structural divergence from several U.S. proposals. CADD, designed for compliance with the incoming federal regime, does not offer yield.
The $10 million raise completed in September 2025 assembled seven institutional backers, each representing a distinct segment of Canada's financial infrastructure:
| Backer | Sector | Role | |--------|--------|------| | National Bank of Canada | Big Six bank | Institutional credibility, banking rails | | Shopify | E-commerce platform | Merchant payment integration pathway | | Wealthsimple | Fintech / wealth management | Retail and institutional distribution | | ATB Financial | Provincial Crown corporation | Alberta government-adjacent capital | | Shakepay | Crypto exchange | Digital asset distribution channel | | Purpose Unlimited | Asset management | Institutional fund infrastructure | | Urbana Corporation | Investment holding company | Majority stakeholder |
The consortium spans banking, e-commerce, fintech, asset management, and crypto-native distribution. National Bank of Canada is the sixth-largest bank in Canada by assets. Shopify processed over $235 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2024. ATB Financial is owned by the Province of Alberta.
Canada's stablecoin regulation operates on two levels, with a third layer incoming.
Provincial (current): CADD is approved by Alberta Treasury Board and Finance. Tetra Trust holds a trust company license under Alberta's jurisdiction. This is the framework under which CADD currently operates.
Securities (current): QCAD, issued by Stablecorp via QCAD Digital Trust, received its final prospectus receipt from the Alberta Securities Commission in November 2025. This interim securities framework has governed stablecoin issuance in Canada since 2023.
Federal (pending): Bill C-15 received Royal Assent in March 2026, establishing the Stablecoin Act. The Bank of Canada will administer the framework. Key provisions:
The federal framework explicitly excludes financial institutions, central banks, and closed-loop stablecoins from its scope. The effective date has not been fixed by Governor in Council order but is expected no earlier than mid-February 2027.
Tetra Trust, as a licensed trust company (a financial institution), may fall outside the federal Stablecoin Act's scope entirely — a structural advantage that could allow it to operate under its existing provincial trust-company framework while competitors face new federal registration requirements.
Three CAD-pegged stablecoins now exist in various stages of market readiness:
| Token | Issuer | Regulatory Basis | Status | Volume | |-------|--------|-----------------|--------|--------| | CADD | Tetra Trust (via CAD Digital) | Alberta trust company license | Live (May 4, 2026) | New launch | | QCAD | Stablecorp (via QCAD Digital Trust) | ASC prospectus (Nov 2025) | Approved, not yet widely available | Limited | | CADC | Loon (acquired from Paytrie) | Pre-filed ASC prospectus | Operating since 2021 | $200M+ cumulative |
CADD's primary differentiation is institutional backing. A Big Six bank, a Crown corporation, and Canada's largest e-commerce platform form its consortium — a level of establishment-finance support that neither QCAD nor CADC has assembled.
Loon raised $3 million CAD in pre-seed financing (Version One Ventures led) in October 2025 for its CADC stablecoin. The gap in fundraising scale — $10 million for CADD versus $3 million for CADC — reflects the difference in institutional support and ambition.
The core challenge for CADD is structural. USD-denominated tokens — USDT ($188 billion market cap) and USDC ($78 billion) — control over 80% of the $321 billion stablecoin market. Non-USD stablecoins collectively account for less than 10% of total supply.
This creates a network-effect barrier: liquidity begets liquidity. DeFi protocols, centralized exchanges, and payment processors are built around USD stablecoin pairs. A CAD stablecoin must either:
Some non-USD stablecoins have shown traction in specific corridors. BRLA, a Brazilian real-backed stablecoin, grew from near-zero to roughly $400 million per month in transfer volume by early 2026, according to a16z crypto data. The Euro stablecoin market has expanded under the MiCA regulatory framework in Europe. These are corridor-specific successes, not broad market share gains.
CADD's institutional-first strategy implicitly concedes the retail liquidity battle and targets the settlement layer — a bet that enterprise users will value regulatory clarity and CAD-native denomination over raw on-chain liquidity.
The economic case for a CAD stablecoin centers on eliminating correspondent banking friction. Current costs for Canadian cross-border payments:
A CAD stablecoin settling on-chain eliminates the intermediary chain entirely. Settlement occurs in seconds to minutes, at gas costs that — on Base — run under $0.01 per transaction. For institutional users moving millions in daily settlement volume, the fee differential is material.
Canada's $400 billion per business day in clearings volume represents the addressable market at its theoretical maximum. Even capturing a fraction of a percent of that flow would make CADD among the most active non-USD stablecoins globally.
The Shopify backing signals a specific corridor opportunity: cross-border merchant payouts. Canadian merchants on Shopify selling to U.S. customers currently receive USD revenue that must be converted to CAD through banking rails, absorbing conversion costs at every step. A CADD integration could compress that settlement to a single on-chain transaction.
CADD's launch tests a specific hypothesis: that a regulated, institutionally-backed CAD stablecoin can capture meaningful settlement volume in a market dominated by USD tokens. The consortium backing is unusually strong for a non-USD stablecoin. The regulatory timing — operating under provincial approval ahead of a federal framework that may not apply to trust companies — provides a structural head start.
The challenge is scale. At $10 million in funding against a $321 billion stablecoin market, CADD is a rounding error. Its viability depends on whether Shopify, Wealthsimple, and National Bank of Canada move from passive investors to active integrators — embedding CADD into merchant payouts, wealth platform settlement, and institutional banking flows.
Canada processes $400 billion per business day. The stablecoin market processes $27 trillion per year. CADD sits at the intersection of both — but only if the institutional rails materialize. The next 12 months, as the federal Stablecoin Act takes effect and competitors launch, will determine whether Canada's stablecoin market supports one winner, three coexisting products, or — as in most non-USD stablecoin markets — none with meaningful scale.