Tether's USAT goes live on Celo, its first network beyond Ethereum
The federally regulated dollar token Tether launched in January now mints and burns natively on the payments network, where it can also pay for gas.
What happened
USAT, the dollar stablecoin issued for Tether by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act, went live on Celo on 29 July with native mint and burn support, its first deployment beyond Ethereum. Celo's fee abstraction standard lets holders pay transaction fees in USAT itself. The token's supply stands near $185m since its January launch. Tether's own data, cited in reporting, puts roughly $470m of authorised USDT on Celo, a network that carries about 28% of cross-chain USDT transfers. Tether US chief executive Bo Hines called the expansion 'a deliberate decision' to put the token where digital dollars already circulate.
Why it matters
This is the first clear sign of how Tether means to distribute its regulated US product: along the payments rails where USDT already moves, not through trading venues. A GENIUS-regime token that can settle its own fees on a low-cost network built for payments narrows the practical distance between the regulated and the offshore dollar. It also deepens Celo's position as a stablecoin distribution network, and it follows Tether's $7m Series A investment in Pact Labs to push USAT into payroll and payments.
What is not settled
USAT remains small against the rest of Tether's book, about $185m in issue against USDT's $183bn at the last quarterly attestation, and whether regulated demand follows the rails is untested. The announcement ran through Celo's channels; Tether's newsroom had not posted its own release when this was written, and the launch figures are the companies' own rather than independently measured.
Institutions in this story
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Tether
Issuer
Deployed USAT, the dollar token it launched in January under the GENIUS Act regime, to a second network on 29 July 2026, with native minting and burning rather than a bridged representation; it stands at about $185m in issue against USDT's $183bn at the last quarterly attestation.
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Celo
Network
Took the deployment as its first major regulated dollar token, and its fee abstraction mechanism lets USAT pay gas, so a holder can transact without acquiring the network's own asset first.
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Anchorage Digital
Custodian
Issues USAT as the federally chartered bank behind it, which is what makes the token a regulated instrument rather than an offshore one and what the launch is trading on.
On the record
Tether's USAT stablecoin goes live on Celo, its first network beyond Ethereum
Tether's USAT, the dollar token issued by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act regime, went live on Celo on 29 July 2026, its first network beyond Ethereum. The deployment mints and burns natively rather than bridging a representation, and Celo's fee abstraction mechanism lets USAT pay transaction fees, so a holder can transact without first acquiring the network's own asset. The announcement ran through Celo's channels; Tether's newsroom carried no release of its own.