What is Real USD (USDR) Crypto Coin? The Real Estate-Backed Stablecoin That Failed to Stay Pegged

Real USD, or USDR, was pitched as the future of stablecoins: a digital dollar backed not by cash or Treasury bonds, but by actual buildings - apartments, offices, and warehouses in the UK, turned into blockchain tokens. It promised yield from rental income and property appreciation, all while staying pegged to $1. But in March 2025, that promise shattered. USDR dropped to $0.51. People lost money. Trust evaporated. And now, nearly eight months later, it’s still trading at $0.92 - barely holding on.

What USDR Was Supposed to Be

USDR was created by a company called Tangible, founded by Danny Czamanski. Its goal was simple: take real estate - something most people can’t buy a fraction of - and turn it into digital tokens that could be traded like crypto. Unlike USDC or USDT, which are backed by cash and short-term government bonds, USDR claimed its value came from 190 physical properties in the UK, each represented as an NFT on the blockchain.

The idea was clever. When you minted USDR, you deposited DAI - a popular decentralized stablecoin. Tangible used that DAI to buy more properties. Those properties generated rent. The rent, plus any price increases, was meant to buy even more real estate, making USDR more valuable over time. It wasn’t just stable - it was supposed to grow.

On paper, it looked like a win. USDR was the first stablecoin tied to yield-producing real estate. Investors could earn 4-8% annually from property income, something no other stablecoin offered. The protocol claimed to be audited. It ran on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token with the contract address 0x40379a439d4f6795b6fc9aa5687db461677a2dba. It had a max supply of 45 million tokens. It even had a native token, TNGBL, used for governance and minting.

How It Actually Worked (And Why It Broke)

The flaw wasn’t in the idea - it was in the execution.

USDR’s collateral was split into two parts: DAI reserves (liquid cash) and tokenized real estate (illiquid property). At its peak, Tangible said 60% of USDR’s backing came from real estate. That sounds fine - until you realize that real estate can’t be sold in minutes. It takes weeks. Maybe months. And when people started pulling their money out, Tangible didn’t have enough DAI on hand to pay them back.

In March 2025, around $12 million in DAI redemptions hit the system at once. That wasn’t a run on a bank. It was a panic in DeFi. And because Tangible’s DAI reserves were too thin, the protocol couldn’t fulfill redemption requests. So it froze them. Users got messages saying, “Your redemption is being processed - expect delays of 48-72 hours.”

But here’s the kicker: the market didn’t wait. Traders saw the freeze. They saw the 60% illiquid backing. And they dumped USDR. Price crashed to $0.51. The stablecoin wasn’t stable anymore. It was a gamble on whether Tangible could sell 190 buildings fast enough to cover its debts.

Experts called it a textbook case of mismatched liquidity. Kristin Dean, a finance professor at Wharton, said it best: “Stablecoins requiring instant redemption shouldn’t rely on assets that take months to liquidate.”

What Happened After the Crash

Tangible scrambled to fix things. In April 2025, they raised the minimum DAI reserve requirement from 40% to 65%. They promised better liquidity buffers. They said they’d integrate with institutional real estate funds. But nothing changed the core problem: the value of USDR still depended on the price of 190 UK buildings.

And those buildings? Their value isn’t real-time. Chainlink oracles feeding price data to the protocol had delays of up to 48 hours. During market swings, no one knew if USDR was really worth $0.92 or $0.75. Traders couldn’t trust the price.

Trustpilot ratings plummeted from 4.2 stars to 1.7. Reddit threads filled with stories of people losing thousands. One user, u/CryptoSafetyFirst, wrote: “I deposited DAI thinking it was a stable yield opportunity. But when I tried to redeem during market volatility, the liquidity was gone - Tangible’s ‘real’ USD wasn’t real at all.”

Meanwhile, market cap dropped from $85 million in February 2025 to just $22 million by October 2025. That’s a 74% collapse. While the broader stablecoin market grew 38% in the same period, USDR was bleeding users.

How It Compares to Other Stablecoins

Comparison of USDR vs. Other Stablecoins

Feature	USDR	USDC	USDT	USDY (Ondo)
Backing	65% DAI + 35% tokenized real estate	Cash + U.S. Treasuries	Cash, commercial paper, loans	U.S. Treasuries
Liquidity	Low - real estate takes weeks to sell	High - instant redemption	High - instant redemption	High - Treasuries are liquid
Yield	Potential 4-8% from rent & appreciation	0%	0%	~5% from Treasury interest
Depeg Event	Yes - dropped to $0.51 (March 2025)	No	No	No
Regulatory Risk	High - unclear licensing for property tokenization	Low - regulated by U.S. authorities	Medium - under scrutiny but widely accepted	Low - backed by regulated assets

USDR stands out because it’s the only stablecoin trying to use physical property as collateral. But that’s also its weakness. USDC and USDT are backed by assets that can be sold in seconds. USDY uses U.S. Treasuries - the safest, most liquid financial instruments on Earth. USDR? It’s betting on the price of a warehouse in Manchester. If the market turns, there’s no quick escape.

Can You Still Use USDR Today?

Technically, yes. You can still buy USDR on Binance and add it to MetaMask using its contract address. You can trade fractions as small as 0.01 USDR. But you’re not buying a stablecoin anymore. You’re buying a speculative bet on whether Tangible can rebuild trust.

The protocol still pays yield - if you hold and don’t redeem. But if you need to cash out during a market dip? You’re taking a risk. The redemption system is slower. The reserves are still below what experts recommend. And the community? It’s half the size it was before the crash.

DeFi Education Project rated USDR’s complexity at 7.2 out of 10. For comparison, USDC is a 3.5. You need to understand tokenized real estate, oracle delays, liquidity buffers, and redemption queues just to hold it. Most people don’t.

Is USDR a Good Investment?

No - not if you’re looking for stability. If you want a digital dollar that stays at $1, stick with USDC or USDT. They’ve been tested in every market cycle. They’re regulated. They’re liquid.

But if you’re a high-risk DeFi trader who believes in real-world asset tokenization, USDR might still have a role. It’s the only stablecoin with direct exposure to property appreciation. If UK real estate surges in 2026, and Tangible finally locks in enough DAI reserves, USDR could recover. But that’s a big if.

Analysts are split. J.P. Morgan gave it a “D” stability rating. Scalar Capital still thinks it could work - if they fix the liquidity gap. But as of October 2025, the market hasn’t forgiven it. The price is still 8% below $1. And the headlines? Still ugly.

What This Means for the Future of RWA Stablecoins

USDR’s collapse wasn’t just a failure of one project. It was a warning. The World Economic Forum predicts the real-world asset tokenization market will hit $16 trillion by 2030. But USDR showed how easily that dream can turn into a nightmare.

Regulators are watching. The Financial Stability Board named USDR as an example of “inappropriate collateral liquidity.” Washington State’s financial regulators are still deciding if Tangible needs a money transmitter license. Without clear rules, projects like this will keep stumbling.

Future RWA stablecoins will need three things: liquid reserves to handle redemptions, transparent, real-time valuations of underlying assets, and clear regulatory alignment. USDR had none of those when it mattered most.

Real estate-backed stablecoins aren’t dead. But USDR proved they can’t be built like regular crypto. They need banking-grade liquidity, not blockchain hype.