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 “sensible options for remittances, funds, and different monetary functions that demand each pace and reliability.”
Stablecoins are a $200 billion digital asset class with their costs anchored to an exterior asset, predominantly the U.S. greenback. They function a bridge between government-issued cash and blockchain-based digital belongings, and are more and more common for on a regular basis makes use of like funds, financial savings and remittances, particularly in rising nations.
Whereas stablecoin utilization has quickly quickly expanded over the previous years, exercise and provide are principally focused on sensible contract platforms like Ethereum, Tron and Solana.
What makes USDT’s integration with Bitcoin doable is Taproot Property, a chunk of infrastructure that enables asset issuances on the Bitcoin base layer and transfers over the Lightning Community, a scaling platform specializing in quick and low-cost transactions, thus making micropayments extra cost-efficient. The protocol, developed by Lightning Labs and launched final 12 months, opens the best way to carry exterior tokens like stablecoins to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
“Thousands and thousands of individuals will now be capable to use probably the most open, safe blockchain to ship {dollars} globally,” mentioned Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, growth group behind the Lightning Community. “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.