Tether launches USAT, a US-regulated dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank
Tether announced USAT on 27 January 2026, a dollar stablecoin issued in the United States by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act framework, with Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer. The token is separate from USDT, which continues to be issued offshore.
What happened
Tether said USAT would be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., a federally chartered institution, making it a federally regulated payment stablecoin issuer under the GENIUS Act. Cantor Fitzgerald was named reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer for the Treasury holdings backing the token. Bo Hines was named chief executive of the US entity, reporting alongside Tether group chief executive Paolo Ardoino. Initial distribution was announced through Bybit, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX and Moonpay. Tether did not publish target circulation or a timetable for scaling USAT relative to USDT. The structural point, noted in subsequent analysis, is that USAT does not replace USDT. Tether's offshore token, which accounts for the large majority of its outstanding supply, remains outside the GENIUS Act perimeter, while USAT provides a compliant instrument for US-regulated distribution.
Why it matters
USAT is the first test of whether the GENIUS Act produces genuine onshore competition or a compliance wrapper alongside an unchanged offshore business. The two-token structure lets the largest stablecoin issuer serve regulated US demand without subjecting its main float to US reserve, redemption and audit requirements. For market structure, the question is fungibility. If USAT and USDT trade at a persistent basis, or if liquidity fragments between onshore and offshore dollar tokens, the cost of stablecoin settlement rises for anyone bridging the two. If they trade at parity because arbitrage is easy, the regulatory perimeter has less economic force than its drafters intended.
What is not settled
Tether has not published USAT circulation, reserve attestations on the same cadence as USDT, or a policy on convertibility between the two tokens.
Institutions in this story
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Tether
Issuer
Issuer of USDT, the largest dollar token, with roughly $183bn of token liabilities and $141bn of direct and indirect exposure to US Treasury bills as at 31 March 2026 on the BDO attestation that also reported $8.23bn of…
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Anchorage Digital
Custodian
Federally chartered digital asset bank, supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency since January 2021, offering custody, staking, settlement and trading to institutions. The charter makes it one of the…
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Cantor Fitzgerald
Bank
New York financial services firm founded in 1945, and one of the 24 primary dealers authorised to trade US government securities with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It custodies the Treasury reserves behind…
On the record
Tether announces USAT, a US-issued dollar stablecoin
Tether announced USAT, a dollar stablecoin issued in the United States by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act framework, with Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer. The token sits alongside USDT, which continues to be issued outside the United States.