VersaBank, a Canadian digital bank, has completed a pilot for tokenized deposits issued on Algorand, Ethereum, and Stellar. What separates this from a typical stablecoin is structure: these tokens, called Digital Deposit Receipts or DDRs, directly represent a bank deposit and stay as liabilities on VersaBank’s regulated balance sheet.
When someone holds a USDVB token, that is a claim on actual U.S. dollars sitting at VersaBank USA, not a stand-alone crypto token backed by reserves held elsewhere. VersaBank describes that as a more compliant, bank-backed model because the claim remains directly tied to the regulated deposit itself.
VersaBank’s pilot is also notable for going multi-chain from the start. The bank tested issuance, redemption, and management of these tokenized deposits across three public blockchains, rather than a single proprietary network.
This type of bank-issued token may now need to move beyond controlled pilots and become part of real daily payments infrastructure. That is the hurdle if banks, counterparties, and regulators are serious about on-chain settlement that fits inside compliance frameworks.
VersaBank’s tokenized deposit pilot moving across multiple blockchains is the signal to watch as banks inch on-chain.