YLDS, Ondo USDY, and Franklin Templeton's BENJI all let you hold dollar-denominated yield onchain. They look similar at the surface: stablecoin-shaped tokens that accrue or distribute Treasury-rate returns. They are not the same instrument. Each sits inside a different regulatory wrapper, draws yield from a different asset pool, and gives the holder a different bundle of rights and redemption mechanics. Picking the wrong one for your use case can mean wrong tax treatment, wrong counterparty risk, or wrong liquidity assumptions.
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This guide breaks the three apart on the dimensions that matter for treasury teams, fintechs, and onchain users deciding where to park dollars.
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BENJI is a tokenized share of a registered money market fund (FOBXX). USDY is a tokenized note backed by Treasuries and bank deposits. YLDS is an SEC-registered face-amount certificate issued by a Figure affiliate, paying SOFR minus 0.50% (Figure Markets disclosure). Same look, three different regulatory regimes — which dictates yield source, redemption, and who owes you money if something breaks.
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Use this matrix as a quick filter before reading the deeper sections. Every row reflects how each issuer publicly describes the product as of mid-2026.

USDY is structured as a tokenized note, not a fund share. Ondo issues it through Ondo USDY LLC — a BVI special purpose vehicle — and backs each token with short-term US Treasuries plus bank demand deposits. Yield accrues via price appreciation rather than rebasing. For current circulating supply, see Ondo's published TVL on ondo.finance/usdy.
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USDY is multichain by design. Ondo's documentation lists Ethereum alongside several Solana, Move-based, and Layer 2 chains, with bridging handled through Ondo's own infrastructure. Treat the supported-chain list as live data: Ondo adds and rotates networks, so confirm against ondo.finance before integration. The practical takeaway is that USDY is the easiest of the three to plug into DeFi protocols that already speak ERC-20 or SPL.
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The tradeoff is the wrapper. A note is a debt instrument. Holders are creditors of Ondo USDY LLC. The collateral is Treasuries and deposits, but the legal claim runs through the BVI SPV, not directly to the underlying. US persons cannot freely hold USDY without going through Ondo's accredited-investor process. Non-US users get the easier path.
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BENJI is the onchain expression of FOBXX, the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund. It is a registered investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, regulated like any other US money market fund, with the token serving as a record of beneficial ownership. Franklin Templeton runs the fund; the token sits on top.
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That is the most regulated of the three structures. BENJI holders own fund shares, the fund itself owns short-term US government securities and repo, and the SEC supervises it as a '40 Act fund. Franklin Templeton has issued BENJI on Stellar since 2021 — making it the longest-running tokenized MMF on the network — and has since expanded to Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Avalanche, Aptos, Solana, and BNB Chain. The retail BENJI app gives US users direct access; the institutional product wraps the same fund.
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The constraint is composability. Because BENJI is a fund share with KYC and transfer restrictions enforced at the token level, it does not move freely into permissionless DeFi the way a stablecoin does. Treasury teams who want to hold a true MMF onchain — with all the safety that wrapper implies — accept that boundary.
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YLDS is a face-amount certificate issued by Figure Certificate Company, a Figure Technology Solutions affiliate. It pays SOFR minus 0.50% (50 basis points), accrued daily and distributed monthly in USD or additional YLDS, per Figure Markets' product disclosure. The product first launched on Provenance Blockchain in February 2025, expanded to Solana in late 2025, and added Stellar on May 5, 2026 (Stellar press release) — making it the first SEC-registered yield-bearing dollar product to ship across all three networks.
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A face-amount certificate is a specific instrument under federal securities law (Section 28 of the Investment Company Act of 1940): an obligation of the issuer to pay a stated face amount on a future date, with periodic accruals. It is not a fund share and not a note. The investor's claim runs to Figure Certificate Company's asset pool, and the disclosed coupon (SOFR minus 50 bps) gives allocators a transparent benchmark to model against.
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The Stellar deployment matters because of where Stellar sits in the payments stack — anchors, MoneyGram cash-out, the existing remittance corridors — and makes YLDS a natural fit for fintechs and neobanks routing dollar payouts in markets like Argentina and Brazil. Provenance gives YLDS a regulated home base; Solana adds DeFi liquidity; Stellar adds payments distribution.
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Match the wrapper to the job. Operating cash for a US treasury team belongs in a money market fund. Non-US holders who want chain optionality reach for a note. Fintechs routing dollar payouts in Stellar-native corridors look at a certificate. The wrong match shows up in tax forms, redemption queues, and counterparty exposure.

The wrapper determines who you are exposed to. BENJI holders are exposed to a registered money market fund and its collateral pool, with bankruptcy-remote structure standard to '40 Act funds. USDY holders are creditors of Ondo USDY LLC — a BVI SPV — with claims secured by the underlying Treasuries and deposits but routed through the issuer entity. YLDS holders are creditors of Figure Certificate Company, with a claim against its certificate-backing asset pool.
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None of these is a stablecoin. None of them carries the "always one dollar" promise USDC or USDT advertise. All three carry yield, which means all three carry duration and credit exposure of some kind. BENJI is the most conservatively wrapped and the most regulated. USDY sits in the middle: well-collateralized but legally a note routed through a BVI SPV. YLDS sits inside an SEC-registered face-amount-certificate framework, with Figure Certificate Company credit as the relevant question — investors should read Figure's filings before sizing a position.
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Redemption is where the three diverge most operationally. Ondo settles USDY redemptions in USDC, typically within T+0 to T+2 depending on size and channel. Franklin Templeton processes BENJI redemptions like any money market fund — same-day or next-business-day cash, subject to fund cutoff times. YLDS settles onchain against Figure Certificate Company; Stellar, Solana, and Provenance settlement is fast, but the certificate-to-cash conversion path is the part that determines real-world liquidity, and that path is set by Figure's offering documents rather than the chain itself.
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For any treasury sizing a position larger than a few million dollars, the right move is to read the actual offering documents. Press releases describe direction; prospectuses describe rules.
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This comparison reflects publicly available product documentation from each issuer plus the May 2026 Figure x Stellar launch announcement. Supply figures, fund yields, and supported-chain lists move with markets and product roadmaps; verify against current disclosures before making allocation decisions.