USDD Stablecoin Governance Portal Disappears Despite Decentralization Claims
The TRON DAO Reserve, which manages reserves for the USDD stablecoin, has shut down its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance portal, according to a report by Protos published on February 25, 2025.
Despite USDD's continued claims of being community-driven, the governance portal that previously allowed users to vote on protocol changes has been removed. The report notes that throughout USDD's multi-year history, the governance portal was only used once before being taken down.
This action stands in stark contrast to USDD's own documentation, which states that "the governance framework of the USDD ecosystem is designed to be community-driven and decentralized." The project's website continues to claim that "governance empowers stakeholders to make critical decisions regarding the protocol's future" and that USDD "is constantly evolving through community proposals and voting."
According to Protos, several major decisions regarding USDD have been made without community input, including:
- The launch of USDD 2.0
- The removal of Bitcoin from USDD's collateral
- The elimination of the governance portal itself
The only vote ever conducted through the portal was to authorize the use of "burned" funds by the project, which Protos suggests shows a misunderstanding of both DAO principles and the concept of burning cryptocurrency.
When contacted by Protos for clarification on these discrepancies between USDD's stated governance model and actual practices, representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries sent to both their X account and email.
The USDD website continues to describe the stablecoin as "fully decentralized" and claims it is "governed by a decentralized community where users actively participate in the protocol's decision-making process." It also states that USDD is "fully collateralized with high-quality cryptocurrency token like TRX and USDT."
