North Carolina — Surus said on April 14 that it is serving as trustee, collateral agent and custodian for USDM1, a U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign financial instrument issued by the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The instrument is described as a blockchain-native sovereign bond backed 1:1 by U.S. Treasury instruments and developed to support the Marshall Islands’ ENRA program, a long-term nationwide universal basic income initiative.
USDM1 is designed for continuous settlement on blockchain infrastructure across the Marshall Islands, one of the world’s most geographically dispersed states, comprising more than 1,200 islands and atolls spread across roughly 750,000 square miles of the North Pacific. The instrument is issued natively on-chain rather than as a tokenized representation of an off-chain asset.
According to the announcement, the Marshall Islands, through its exclusive services provider M1X Global, appointed Surus to carry out three roles that are often divided among several institutions. Under the bond’s New York law-governed indenture, Surus acts as U.S.-based trustee, collateral agent and custodian.
In its role as trustee, Surus administers the trust arrangement and oversees collateral segregation. As collateral agent, it holds a first-priority security interest in the U.S. Treasury collateral backing the bond under New York law. As custodian, it provides custody for U.S. Treasuries, cash, digital assets and tokenized money market funds.
The structure is intended to separate collateral protections from the sovereign issuer and to give holders enforceable rights under U.S. law. The company said the arrangement combines blockchain-based issuance with legal and operational features more commonly associated with traditional capital markets infrastructure.
USDM1 is structured as a fully collateralized sovereign bond backed by short-duration U.S. Treasury instruments. It is governed under New York law and includes a customary waiver of sovereign immunity. The announcement said the instrument is designed to support government disbursements and to align with existing market conventions for collateral, margin, netting and financing workflows.
Surus also said its role as U.S. trustee supports the instrument’s treatment in relation to high-quality liquid asset, or HQLA, qualification under Basel standards.
Patrick Murck, founder and chief executive of Surus, said USDM1 represents a new type of sovereign financial instrument that combines blockchain-native issuance with legal protections intended for public-sector and institutional use. Mark Lurie, chief executive of M1X Global, said the instrument was designed to strengthen transparency in sovereign collateral by backing each unit with short-dated U.S. Treasury instruments held through Surus.
Surus is a financial infrastructure platform focused on custody, reserve management, stablecoin issuance, asset tokenization and fund administration through its regulated trust company structure. The company said it wholly owns Surus Trust Company, a North Carolina-chartered trust company.
