Overview
RealFi is building a dollar-pegged crypto token called USDr that aims to pay interest just for holding it, the same way a savings account does. Instead of generating that interest from crypto trading, the money behind USDr is parked in real-world places: U.S. government bonds, money market funds, corporate bonds, and small business loans in countries where banks are harder to access1.
RealFi was announced by founder and CEO John O'Connor and is backed by Input Output Group, the company that builds Cardano. As of the April 2026 announcement, USDr, its earning version called sUSDr, and the project's voting token RFG aren't live yet. You can join a waitlist to be notified when the testnet opens2.
Key Features
- Interest from real-world earnings, not crypto trading. USDr earns its yield from a mix of U.S. Treasury bonds, money market funds, corporate bonds, and small business loans in emerging markets. These are the kinds of investments a traditional money manager would hold, not crypto trades3.
- A dollar-pegged token you can put to work. You're meant to be able to buy USDr with USDC or ADA on partner exchanges, then stake it as sUSDr to earn interest. You can cash out when you need to. There's no waiting period, and the team has published a target rate of up to 9% per year2.
- A points program that turns into voting power. Holding, minting, or staking USDr earns you R-Points each day. Those points convert into RFG, the project's voting token, in scheduled rounds. The conversion rate and how the tokens are paid out are published before each round4.
- A page that will show what backs the token. A transparency page is planned that will show what's parked behind every USDr, how it's split between investment types, and how much backing there is. Holders should be able to verify it rather than wait for a quarterly statement5.
- Starting on Cardano, expanding later. USDr is launching on Cardano alongside USDC's arrival on the network. The team has said they plan to expand to Ethereum and Bitcoin afterwards, with a goal of one billion dollars locked across all three2.
What to Expect
If you visit realfi.co right now, you get a marketing site explaining what USDr will do, what's behind the reserves, and how the points-to-voting system works. Every action you'd normally take in an app (Save, Earn, Mint, Swap) is still a placeholder. The only thing you can actually do is join the waitlist for early access.
The rest of the site gives you a clear sense of how everything is supposed to work once it launches. You can read about the real-world assets backing USDr, browse a frequently-asked-questions page that lists supported wallets and reserve categories, and follow a blog that profiles small businesses in the emerging-market loan pipeline. At launch, Lace will be the only confirmed wallet, with others to follow.
RealFi is still pre-launch. USDr, sUSDr, and RFG aren't live as of April 20262. The transparency page that will show what backs each token doesn't exist yet, so most of what you can verify today comes from the project's own announcements5.
