The Bank of North Dakota is entering the stablecoin market with Roughrider Coin, a U.S. dollar-backed cryptocurrency developed in partnership with payments company Fiserv.
The token will be available to North Dakota banks and credit unions in 2026 and is designed to support interbank transactions, merchant payments and cross-border funds transfers, according to Wednesday’s announcement.
Fiserv reportedly processed an estimated 35 billion commercial transactions in 2022. Its digital asset platform was introduced in June alongside a “white label” stablecoin for banks. Rough Rider Coin will run on this system, and Fiserv expects interoperability with other stablecoins.
The coin is named after Theodore Roosevelt, who served as President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. In the late 1800s, Roosevelt led a unit called the Rough Riders to fight Spanish forces in Cuba. After retiring from politics, he settled in North Dakota.
Founded in 1919, the Bank of North Dakota is the nation’s only nationally owned bank. With more than $10 billion in assets, it partners with local banks and credit unions to support agriculture, commerce and industry through liquidity, loan participation and secondary market services, with profits reinvested in national programs and economic development.
North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong said the issuance of a stablecoin “backed by real money” shows the state is “taking a cutting-edge approach to building a secure and efficient financial ecosystem for our people.”
Rough Rider Token is the second state-issued stablecoin to be announced in the US this year, following Wyoming’s Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) mainnet, which launched on seven blockchains in August and confirmed Hedera as the issuer in September.
Related: Stablecoin market boom to $300 billion provides ‘rocket fuel’ for crypto rally
The competitive stablecoin landscape
When Wyoming and North Dakota bring stablecoins online, they will be entering an ever more crowded market. Since the passage of the GENIUS Act in July, the US stablecoin landscape has become increasingly fragmented and competitive.
While established issuers such as USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC) still dominate by market capitalization, a wave of new entrants is reshaping the market.
On September 24th, crypto derivatives platform Hyperliquid launched USDH, a native stablecoin issued by Native Markets. The dollar-pegged tokens will circulate within Hyperliquid’s network, which processed more than $330 billion in transaction volume in July.
The next day, Cloudflare announced plans for NET Dollar, a USD-backed stablecoin designed for AI-driven payments that supports real-time programmable transactions between autonomous agents.
As the list of stablecoins grows, some industry leaders see increased competition as a sign of healthy maturation rather than disruption.
“More teams are considering launching and using stablecoins, which means stablecoins are successfully solving problems for businesses and users,” Austin Ballard, partnership manager at Offchain Labs, told Cointelegraph. “It will be a net gain in the long run.”
magazine: How do the world’s major religions view Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies?