Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, faces a $2.9 billion annual fee drain to blockchains it doesn't control, mainly Ethereum and Tron. To reclaim these fees, Tether supports two competing USDT blockchains: Plasma, a DeFi-focused chain with a native token and paymaster model, and Stable, an enterprise-focused chain using USDT itself as gas. Both aim to reduce reliance on Tron, which holds 45% of USDT and dominates remittance flows. This dual-chain strategy diversifies Tether's approach to capturing fee revenue and improving user experience, while regulatory developments in the U.S. could impact their adoption. The real winner will be the chain that gains significant USDT float from Tron or Ethereum, with the ultimate goal of ending the costly fee leak.
A Senate subcommittee report revealed that Iran used Tether's USDT stablecoin to move value around U.S. sanctions, with 84% of 846 sanctioned wallets linked to Iran having used USDT. The report criticized Tether for delays in freezing some wallets. T...
Tether has invested in Abu Dhabi fintech Shiga Digital to expand self-custodial digital asset services in Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Using Tether's Wallet Development Kit, Shiga will offer USDT-powered payments and treasury tools ...
Binance Wallet has introduced the ability to pay blockchain gas fees using USDT on BNB Smart Chain, Ethereum, Solana, and TRON networks. This removes the previous requirement for users to hold each network's native gas token before making transaction...
Tether has introduced beta command-line and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools to its Wallet Development Kit, enabling AI clients to interact with self-custodial wallets locally. These tools support wallet management functions such as creation, unloc...
After the Bitget hack stole $387.5 million, Circle and Tether froze about $318,000 in stablecoins from one hacker address. However, the majority of the stolen funds, over 63,000 ETH worth around $170 million, remain unfrozen as no issuer can block Et...
