Tether's USDT stablecoin is returning to the Bitcoin network this month after more than a decade away. The move channels the world's largest stablecoin through Utexo, a Tether-backed infrastructure project that secured $7.5 million in funding and holds the commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin.
Utexo co-founder Viktor Ihnatiuk confirmed the project will deploy USDT across Bitcoin exchanges, wallets and payment providers using Tether's stablecoin trademark. "Tether has always been a Bitcoin company," Ihnatiuk said. "Bitcoin for them is a stability haven, along with gold. That's why Tether kept buying BTC and supporting the Bitcoin community."
Tether holds approximately 100,000 BTC, valued at $8.4 billion as of mid-August, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data. The holding underscores the company's long-term commitment to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Utexo uses Bitcoin's RGB protocol to operate USDT with enhanced privacy. The protocol employs client-side validation, keeping transaction data off Bitcoin's public ledger while anchoring ownership to unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs). This contrasts sharply with account-based models on Ethereum and Tron, where balance updates and transactions broadcast publicly. On Bitcoin, the ledger serves solely to cryptographically prove ownership.
Utexo plans three primary use cases: private USDT transfers, direct swaps between native BTC and USDT without an intermediary exchange, and collateralized lending. Borrowers can use native bitcoin as collateral directly on the network, eliminating the need to wrap BTC on other blockchains as required with tokens like WBTC.
The infrastructure will be offered to exchanges, wallet providers and payment companies through APIs, SDKs and cloud solutions.
RGB's privacy structure carries a tradeoff. Since RGB assets anchor to Bitcoin UTXOs, Utexo cannot freeze a specific asset the way Tether can freeze an Ethereum address. Instead, Utexo would maintain a blacklist of associated UTXOs.
