Arbitrum has joined the Global Dollar Network, a Paxos-led stablecoin consortium, as the Ethereum layer-2 network seeks to capture a share of economics from stablecoin activity on its platform.
USDG, the stablecoin issued by Paxos and backed one-for-one by dollar reserves, launched on Arbitrum on Tuesday with integrations across trading, lending and payment platforms including Fluid, Morpho, GMX, Maple, Li.Fi, and Gauntlet. Kraken is providing on- and off-ramp services, with Uniswap and Fhenix set to follow.
The Global Dollar Network distributes rewards generated by USDG reserves among partners that drive adoption, rather than concentrating economics solely with the issuer. This structure gives Arbitrum a financial stake in USDG growth on its network.
Currently, approximately $3.8 billion in stablecoins circulate on Arbitrum, with Circle's USDC representing roughly 60% of that total. A governance proposal has asked ArbitrumDAO to make USDG growth a strategic priority, allocate 100 million ARB to its DRIP incentive program, and use treasury assets to support USDG liquidity.
The move reflects a broader trend in the digital dollar sector. OpenUSD, backed by Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, Coinbase and Shopify, is building support through the Open Standard consortium. In Europe, Qivalis is backed by 37 banks. These consortiums distribute issuance, distribution and economics across broader partner networks rather than concentrating control with a single entity.
USDG has more than $3 billion in circulation across networks and the Global Dollar Network includes more than 150 partners, including Robinhood, Kraken, Mastercard and OKX.
