- Tether will launch a stablecoin for the US market.
- Former White House official Bo Hines will lead the effort.
Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, will launch a new stablecoin for the US market dubbed USAT by the end of the year, CEO Paolo Ardoino said Friday.
The Charlotte-based company behind USAT will be led by Bo Hines, who previously led the White House’s crypto council as executive director. He joined Tether in August as the company’s strategic advisor for the US.
“Tether is here to participate in the US economy in a huge way,” Hines said on Friday at an event in New York City attended by several crypto heavy-hitters, including venture capitalist Kyle Samani and Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin.
Long locked out of the US, Tether began turning its attention toward the world’s largest economy this year as Congress debated, and ultimately approved, landmark stablecoin legislation called the Genius Act.
In July, Ardoino said the company was looking to launch a new dollar-backed stablecoin that focuses primarily on institutional payments and interbank settlements.
Tether has shunned playing ball with officialdom. It elected to stay out of the European Union after it ushered in the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation, or MiCA, in 2023.
Moreover, the company has long struggled to find an auditor for its books. At the moment, Tether relies on “attestations” to disclose its reserves, which don’t have the credibility of regulated audits conducted for public companies.
Ardoino told DL News last year he was keen on signing up one of the Big Four accounting firms, which had previously balked out of fear having Tether as a client would damage their reputations.
Hines said Tether’s US expansion over the next two years will be “exorbitant.”
“I’m not shy in saying this, we want to dominate,” Hines said. “But we want to dominate for the US.”
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Got a tip? Email ataleks@dlnews.com.
