Tether’s USDT is Launched on Lightning Network

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At the Plan B conference in El Salvador, Tether announced its plans to bring its stablecoin to the Bitcoin network through the use of the Lightning Network, a layer 2 scaling service.

This collaboration was announced by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark. The integration was made possible by Lightning Labs’ utilization of the Taproot Assets protocol, which expanded Bitcoin’s capabilities to support tokenized assets.

Tether, with a market cap of $139.4 billion, is currently the largest stablecoin in the market, surpassing its closest competitor USD Coin (USDC) by nearly three times. According to CoinGecko, Tether processed $10 trillion worth of transactions in 2024, approaching the $16 trillion processed by payment giant Visa.

Tether is currently available on over ten blockchains, including Ethereum, Tron, Solana, and Avalanche.