Polkadot’s OpenGov is holding a governance vote on Referendum 1944, which proposes launching dotUSD as the network’s native decentralized stablecoin. The proposal aims to make the dollar-pegged asset the primary stable-value instrument for the Polkadot ecosystem and eventually to back it mainly with DOT.
An archived Polkassembly snapshot showed 2.4 million DOT voting in favor and 59,900 DOT against, roughly 97.5% Aye and 2.5% Nay, though the vote was still in progress and those figures may change.
The planned launch is phased. In phase one, users would mint dotUSD one-for-one against USDT under a supply cap, with no need for an oracle, collateral vaults or liquidations. The proposal asks the Polkadot Treasury to seed a DOT/dotUSD liquidity pool on Polkadot Asset Hub. The original referendum draft allocated $2.5 million in USDT and $2.5 million in DOT, while a more recent Subsquare version reduced the initial pool to $1.5 million in USDT and $1.5 million in DOT.
In phase two, dotUSD would shift to an overcollateralized model inspired by Liquity v2’s BOLD system. Users could deposit DOT into vaults and mint dotUSD at a collateralization ratio of at least 150%. Liquidations would be absorbed by a stability pool funded with dotUSD, with collateral and debt redistributed across remaining vaults if the pool is exhausted. Redemptions and arbitrage paths are intended to keep dotUSD near $1.
The stablecoin proposal follows Polkadot’s tokenomics overhaul, including a fixed 2.1 billion DOT supply cap approved in September 2025, lower emissions, and the Dynamic Allocation Pool. Referendum 1944 suggests dotUSD could be used to settle stable-value obligations in Polkadot’s next economic phase. The Polkadot Community Foundation said it would not issue, control or custody dotUSD, DOT or USDT under the proposal.
