Bank of North Dakota launches Roughrider Coin stablecoin on Solana
Fiserv’s stablecoin infrastructure is now live with a financial institution client for the first time, powering Bank of North Dakota’s new Roughrider Coin on Solana. For institutional investors, the launch shows a regulated state bank moving straight to production issuance on a public blockchain, ahead of final Federal Reserve rules for payment stablecoins.
- Roughrider Coin settles on Solana and is available to more than 90 banks and credit unions across North Dakota.
- VersaBank issues the token and handles custody, including minting, burning and reserve management, while Fireblocks supplies the tokenization layer.
- The Federal Reserve’s GENIUS Act reserve proposal remains open for public comment for 60 days after Federal Register publication.
- 90+ banks and credit unions in North Dakota now have access
- 56% of surveyed Americans had never heard of stablecoins, per Visa
- 45% said they would use one offered by their existing bank
Fiserv, the Milwaukee-based payments processor whose software runs online banking for thousands of U.S. financial institutions, said Thursday (October 1) that its digital asset platform is live with bank clients, and that Bank of North Dakota’s Roughrider Coin is the first product running on it. The dollar-backed stablecoin settles on Solana, a high-throughput blockchain more commonly associated with retail trading than interbank settlement, and gives more than 90 banks and credit unions across the state a new rail for moving money between each other. The deployment, first reported by CryptoPotato, pairs a state-owned bank founded in 1919 with infrastructure built for crypto-native exchanges.
VersaBank Mints and Custodies the Token, Fireblocks Tokenizes It
Participating institutions reach Roughrider Coin through Commercial Center, the same commercial online banking system many Fiserv clients already use for traditional interbank transfers. There is no separate crypto interface for participating banks to learn.
VersaBank, a federally regulated bank, issues the token and handles custody, a role that covers minting, burning and managing the reserve assets backing each coin in circulation. Fireblocks, a digital-asset infrastructure provider used widely by banks and exchanges for custody and tokenization, supplies the technology layer underneath, while transactions themselves settle on Solana.
Bank of North Dakota chief executive Don Morgan framed the launch as an upgrade to existing interbank plumbing rather than a consumer crypto product.
a new tool to move money more efficiently across North Dakota’s interbank network.
Don Morgan, CEO, Bank of North Dakota
VersaBank founder and president David Taylor said Fiserv’s scale paired with his firm’s regulated capabilities gives stablecoins a trusted foundation inside established banking systems. Sunil Sachdev, Fiserv’s head of embedded finance and digital assets, said in the company’s announcement that the platform helps clients unlock new efficiencies in banking and payments while keeping the security and regulatory standards they expect.
Fiserv Platform Also Targets Cross-Border Payments and Card Issuance
Roughrider Coin is one application of a broader Fiserv platform that also supports stablecoin card issuance, cross-border payments, programmable commerce and treasury automation for banks, corporates and fintechs. It additionally covers tokenized deposits and global currency account services, including dollar accounts for financial institutions outside the U.S. The bet mirrors a wider push to put stablecoins directly on Solana, following moves such as Open Standard’s launch of the OUSD stablecoin on the same network earlier this year.
Fed’s GENIUS Act Rules Face 60-Day Comment Window
The launch arrives as regulators work out how bank-issued stablecoins should be backed and supervised. The Federal Reserve proposed two rules under the GENIUS Act: one requiring Fed-supervised issuers to fully back tokens with approved reserves such as short-term Treasury bills, and another covering applications from supervised banks that want to issue payment stablecoins, with comments accepted for 60 days after Federal Register publication. The custody question sits alongside other recent regulatory moves, including the SEC’s proposed crypto custody rule for investment advisers and the CFTC’s new FAQs on tokenized investments and recordkeeping.
Consumer awareness remains a separate hurdle. Visa’s Money Travels 2026 study found 56% of surveyed Americans had never heard of stablecoins, yet 45% said they would use one if offered by an existing financial provider, versus 36% in a scenario without bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance.
The CCS read. This is less a Solana adoption story than a VersaBank business-model story. A small federally regulated bank is positioning itself as the custody and issuance layer for state-level stablecoin programs, a niche that scales well beyond North Dakota if other states follow and could matter more to VersaBank’s balance sheet than to Solana’s transaction volume.
The Fed has not announced when its GENIUS Act comment period closes or when final reserve and issuance rules will take effect, leaving VersaBank, Fiserv and Bank of North Dakota operating under proposed rather than finalized federal standards while Roughrider Coin scales across the state’s banking network.
