San Salvador — Tether, the crypto firm behind the most important stablecoin, is introducing its $140 billion USDT token to Bitcoin — the blockchain that underpins the most important and oldest cryptocurrency — and Bitcoin-based scaling service Lightning Community, the corporate mentioned on Thursday.
Introduced on the Plan B convention in San Salvador, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino mentioned that bringing USDT to Bitcoin and Lightning goals to supply “practical solutions for remittances, payments, and other financial applications that demand both speed and reliability.”
Stablecoins are a $200 billion digital asset class with their prices anchored to an external asset, predominantly the U.S. dollar. They serve as a bridge between government-issued money and blockchain-based digital assets, and are increasingly popular for everyday uses like payments, savings and remittances, especially in emerging countries.
While stablecoin usage has rapidly rapidly expanded over the past years, activity and supply are mostly concentrated on smart contract platforms like Ethereum, Tron and Solana.
What makes USDT’s integration with Bitcoin possible is Taproot Assets, a piece of infrastructure that allows asset issuances on the Bitcoin base layer and transfers over the Lightning Network, a scaling platform focusing on fast and cheap transactions, thus making micropayments more cost-efficient. The protocol, developed by Lightning Labs and released last year, opens the way to bring external tokens like stablecoins to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
“Hundreds of thousands of individuals will now be capable of use probably the most open, safe blockchain to ship {dollars} globally,” said Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, development organization behind the Lightning Network. “Bringing USDT to Bitcoin combines the safety and decentralization of Bitcoin with the pace and scalability of Lightning,” she added.
UPDATE (Jan. 30, 22:01 UTC): Provides statements from Tether CEO and Lightning Labs CEO.
