Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Altın piyasasında son aylarda yaşanan sert dalgalanmaların ardından dikkat çeken yeni bir tahmin geldi. Varlık yönetim şirketi WisdomTree tarafından yayımlanan analiz raporunda, ons altının mevcut düzeltme sürecinin ardından yeniden yükseliş trendine girebileceği belirtilirken, 2027 yılının ikinci çeyreği için 4.563 dolar hedefi paylaşıldı. Analistler, son geri çekilmeyi boğa piyasasının sona ermesi olarak değil, aşırı fiyatlamaların dengelendiği sağlıklı bir düzeltme olarak değerlendiriyor.

Altında Yükseliş Potansiyeli Korunuyor WisdomTree analistlerine göre altın piyasası, 2026 yılının ilk yarısında tarihi bir yükselişin ardından sert bir düzeltme sürecine girdi. Ocak ayında görülen 5.595 dolarlık rekor seviyenin ardından yaşanan satışlar yatırımcıların dikkatini çekse de raporda uzun vadeli yükseliş beklentisinin değişmediği vurgulandı. Analistler, fiyatlardaki geri çekilmenin spekülatif hareketlerin azalmasını sağladığını ve altının yeniden ekonomik temeller doğrultusunda fiyatlanmaya başladığını belirtiyor. Böylece piyasadaki aşırı değerleme priminin büyük ölçüde ortadan kalktığı ifade ediliyor.

İlginizi Çekebilir: HYPE Fiyatı İçin Analistlerden Dikkat Çeken Tahmin!

Raporda, altın fiyatlarında yaşanan sert düzeltmenin üç temel gelişmeden kaynaklandığı belirtiliyor.

İlk olarak, Kevin Warsh’ın ABD Merkez Bankası (Fed) başkanlığı için aday gösterilmesi, para politikasına ilişkin belirsizlikleri azaltarak altına eklenen risk priminin gerilemesine neden oldu. İkinci olarak, İran ile yaşanan jeopolitik gerilim sırasında yatırımcıların güvenli liman alımlarından çok nakit ihtiyacına yönelmesi dikkat çekti. Bu süreçte birçok yatırımcı likidite sağlamak amacıyla altın satışına yöneldi. Üçüncü faktör ise Çin ve Hindistan merkezli altın yatırım ürünlerine yönelik talebin zayıflaması oldu. Ayrıca kurumsal yatırımcıların, özellikle Tether gibi büyük alıcıların altın birikim hızını azaltması da fiyatlardaki düzeltmeyi hızlandıran unsurlar arasında gösterildi. WisdomTree’den 2027 İçin 4.563 Dolar Tahmini Raporda yer alan baz senaryoya göre, 2027 yılının ikinci çeyreğinde bazı makroekonomik koşulların gerçekleşmesi halinde altın fiyatının 4.563 dolar seviyesine ulaşabileceği öngörülüyor.

Bu senaryoda öne çıkan beklentiler şöyle sıralanıyor:

ABD enflasyonunun yüzde 2,2 seviyesine gerilemesi, 10 yıllık ABD tahvil faizlerinin yaklaşık yüzde 4,33 seviyesinde dengelenmesi, Dolar Endeksi’nin (DXY) 97,1 seviyesine kadar düşmesi. WisdomTree analistleri, bu şartların oluşması halinde ons altının mevcut seviyelerine kıyasla yaklaşık 500 dolarlık bir yükseliş potansiyeli taşıyabileceğini belirtiyor.

Doların Zayıflaması Altını Destekleyebilir Raporda ayrıca ABD ekonomisindeki bütçe açığı ve cari açık gibi uzun vadeli yapısal sorunların dolar üzerinde baskı oluşturmaya devam edebileceği ifade edildi. Doların değer kaybetmesi halinde yatırımcıların yeniden altına yönelmesinin mümkün olduğu belirtilirken, bunun değerli metal için uzun vadede önemli bir destek unsuru olabileceği vurgulandı. Analistlere göre küresel belirsizliklerin devam etmesi, merkez bankalarının altın alımlarını sürdürmesi ve faizlerde beklenen normalleşme süreci de orta ve uzun vadede altın fiyatlarını destekleyen faktörler arasında yer alıyor.

Son dakika kripto para haberleri için hemen tıkla

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StableChain’s product is Tether’s dollar: gas in USDT, transfers in USDT, yield in USDT. Its native token does none of that, and holders own governance and staking rights over a network whose every cash flow is denominated in someone else’s asset. This is crypto’s value-accrual question in its purest form yet, and it deserves a straight answer.

Summary

STABLE is the native token of StableChain, the Tether-ecosystem Layer 1 whose defining feature is that users never need it: gas is paid in USDT0, transfers settle in USDT, and simple sends are free. The token’s stated jobs are governance and security: holders vote on protocol matters through the Stable Foundation’s framework, and validators stake STABLE to secure the network, earning rewards for doing so. The design is deliberate and principled: a payments chain needs a stable fee asset, and separating the security bond from the payment medium is the dual-token architecture’s entire point. The uncomfortable corollary is equally deliberate: a token the product never touches must find its value in security demand, governance rights, and any future claim on the network’s USDT-denominated fee flows, the fee-switch question. Whether that is enough is the purest version of the debate this publication has tracked across Ethereum, XRP, and the L2s: whether infrastructure success ever becomes token value, now tested on a chain that spelled the separation into its architecture. Every blockchain token answers one question with its existence: why does this network need me? Bitcoin’s answer is total; the token is the point. Ethereum’s answer is functional: the token is the fuel and the bond. And the new generation of stablecoin chains has produced the strangest answer yet, embodied most cleanly by STABLE, the native token of the Tether-ecosystem chain whose entire design philosophy is that users should never have to touch it.

On StableChain, gas is paid in USDT0, the omnichain version of Tether’s dollar. Balances are USDT. Simple transfers are exempt from fees entirely. The yield products pay in dollar terms. A user can onboard, transact, build, and exit without ever knowing STABLE exists, and that is not an oversight; it is the pitch: a payments chain where the volatile native token has been engineered out of the user’s path completely, which leaves the token itself standing in an interesting place.

STABLE launched alongside the mainnet in December with two stated jobs, governance and staking, and a market price that implies belief in a third: that owning the token means owning something about the network’s future economics. This guide takes the question seriously from both directions: what the token actually does, mechanically, today, and what it would need to become for the belief to be right, because the gap between those two is where every dual-token chain’s story is decided.

What the token actually does Start with the mechanical inventory, because it is short, real, and frequently misdescribed.

Job one: security. StableChain is a proof-of-stake network, and its validators stake STABLE as the bond that makes consensus honest; misbehavior risks the stake, and diligence earns rewards. This is the token’s hardest, least dismissible function: every proof-of-stake chain needs a bonding asset whose value is endogenous to the network, because a chain secured by staking someone else’s asset, USDT, say, would let an attacker rent security from outside the system it attacks.

The security budget, the total value staked and the rewards paid to maintain it, is denominated in STABLE, funded today primarily through emissions, and it is the one place where the token is structurally irreplaceable. The dual-token design’s honest logic lives here: the payment medium should be stable and external, the security bond should be volatile and internal, and one asset cannot be both.

Job two: governance. STABLE carries voting rights in the network’s governance through the framework stewarded by the Stable Foundation, the independent body launched with the mainnet to run grants, ecosystem programs, and protocol votes. Tokenholder governance over a payments chain means influence over real parameters: fee policy for the non-exempt tiers, the scope of the gas-exempt allowlist, validator-set rules, upgrade schedules, treasury allocation. Governance rights are the token’s most commonly mocked function, crypto’s history is thick with governance tokens whose votes govern nothing consequential, and the mockery should be calibrated: on a chain with a patron as dominant as Tether’s ecosystem, the live question is not whether votes happen but how much of consequence is actually delegated to them, and the honest answer this early is: it is being determined, vote by vote, and the record so far is thin because the chain is young.

And that is the complete mechanical list. STABLE is not gas, not the settlement asset, not the unit of account for the chain’s products, not required to hold, send, or build. The inventory’s brevity is the design, and everything else about the token is a question about the future.

The value question, stated honestly A token’s price is a claim on future usefulness, so state precisely what a STABLE holder owns a claim on, and what they do not.

They do not own the chain’s product. The product is USDT mobility, and its economics flow elsewhere: the float income on the dollars flows to Tether, the fee revenue on non-exempt transactions accrues in USDT terms, and the network’s growth, more users, more transfers, more integrations, grows the patron’s business directly, the mechanism this publication’s gasless-economics guide details. A million new users transacting entirely in the free tier generate, mechanically, zero fee demand for STABLE, precisely because the design removed the token from their path.

This is the sharpest version yet of the value-accrual gap that runs through crypto’s whole history, Ethereum’s L2s paying pennies to mainnet, XRPL’s agents settling in RLUSD, adoption compounding while the associated token watches, except that on those networks the gap emerged; here it was drafted, deliberately, as a feature.

What holders do own is three claims, in ascending order of speculativeness.

First, security demand: as the value settled on the chain grows, the security budget must grow with it; a chain moving billions cannot be secured by a token worth millions without inviting attack, so a successful StableChain structurally requires a valuable STABLE, with validators and delegators buying and locking it to earn the staking yield. This is real, and it has a known weakness: security demand sets a floor proportional to what attackers could steal, not a valuation proportional to what users transact, and the two numbers can diverge by orders of magnitude.

Second, governance premium: if the parameters tokenholders control become commercially consequential, which fee tiers exist, who gets allowlisted, how the treasury deploys, then influence over them is worth paying for, particularly to businesses building on the chain.

Third, and decisive: the fee switch, the question of whether the network’s USDT-denominated cash flows are ever routed to the token, through staking rewards paid from real fees instead of emissions, buy-and-burn mechanics, or revenue sharing. Every dual-token network eventually faces this fork, and the whole investment case compresses into it: a STABLE whose staking yield is funded by growing USDT fee revenue is equity-like, a claim on a payments business; a STABLE whose yield is funded by its own emissions is a dilution machine wearing a yield costume, paying holders with their own money.

Which fork this chain takes is not yet determined, is squarely within what governance and the Foundation will decide, and is, far more than any adoption metric, the number to watch.

One structural detail deserves its own paragraph before the arithmetic: where STABLE sits in the chain’s launch history, because the token’s distribution is part of its value question. The network arrived through a pre-deposit campaign that drew more than $2 billion from over 24,000 wallets before mainnet, a mechanism this publication’s stablechain coverage has examined as its own fundraising genre, and the token generation that followed allocated STABLE across the founding ecosystem, investors from the $28 million seed round, the Foundation’s treasury, and the community programs the Foundation administers.

The composition matters for both of the token’s jobs. For governance, initial concentration among ecosystem insiders means early votes measure the founding coalition’s intentions more than any community’s, and the decentralization of the holder base is itself one of the signals the grading framework below should track.

For security, the same concentration cuts the other way, benignly: a validator set staked by aligned parties is resistant to hostile accumulation precisely because so much supply sits with the ecosystem, which is the standard early-chain trade: security through concentration now, credibility through distribution later. The unlock and emission schedules, as they publish, convert this from description to data: the float’s growth path determines how quickly the dilution ratio bites, and whose tokens are doing the diluting.

The security-budget arithmetic, worked The token’s hardest function deserves its numbers worked in public, because security demand is the one claim STABLE holders own unconditionally, and its arithmetic is both the case’s floor and its ceiling.

A proof-of-stake chain’s security budget must answer one question: what does it cost to attack the network, and is that cost comfortably above what an attacker could gain? The attack cost is a function of the staked value, acquiring or corrupting a controlling share of stake, and the gain is a function of what the chain settles: double-spendable balances, censorable payments, extractable value in flight.

For a payments chain aspiring to carry institutional USDT settlement, the gains side scales with throughput and float parked on-chain, which is why the design community’s rule of thumb holds that staked value must grow roughly in line with the value the chain secures, and why a successful StableChain mechanically requires a substantially valuable STABLE: billions settled daily cannot sit on security worth tens of millions without the mismatch itself becoming the vulnerability.

That is the floor argument, and it is real. Its limits are equally arithmetic.

First, security demand prices the bond, not the business: a chain can secure ten billion dollars of daily settlement with, say, low single-digit billions of staked value, generous by current industry ratios, and that number is a ceiling on security-driven token demand no matter how large the payment volumes above it grow. The token’s security case, in other words, scales with the square footage of the vault, not the traffic through the lobby.

Second, the demand is circular at the margin: validators acquire STABLE to earn staking rewards, and if the rewards are emissions, the demand is buying dilution, a loop that adds lock-up but not exogenous value, which is again why the fee-switch question dominates everything; real-fee rewards are the only input that breaks the circle.

Third, the floor is contingent on decentralization actually mattering: a young chain whose validator set is effectively permissioned within a patron’s ecosystem is secured, in practice, by the patron’s reputation as much as by the bond, and the bond’s economic necessity, along with the token’s, grows only as that training-wheel arrangement is genuinely retired.

The security argument for STABLE is therefore best held precisely: it guarantees the token a job, sized to the vault; it does not guarantee the token a valuation, sized to the network; and the distance between those two is, once more, a decision waiting in governance, not a mechanism waiting in code.

The comparisons that calibrate it Three adjacent cases put boundaries on how this can go, and each maps onto a live possibility for STABLE.

The cautionary case is the pure governance token: assets whose networks succeeded while the token’s claims never matured, votes over nothing binding, fees never routed, value asymptoting toward the governance premium alone, which history prices low. Crypto’s graveyard of DeFi governance tokens trading at fractions of their launch against thriving protocols shows the failure mode is not network failure; it is the network succeeding around the token.

The constructive case is the modern fee-sharing turn: protocols that activated their fee switches, Maker’s burn against DAI revenues in its era, the newer generation of staking modules paying real revenue, and repriced accordingly. The mechanics exist, are well understood, and require only the governance will, which on a patron-dominated chain means the patron’s will: routing USDT fees to STABLE stakers is a decision to share the rail’s economics with tokenholders instead of concentrating them in the ecosystem, and patrons make that decision when tokenholder alignment is worth more to them than the revenue, typically as the validator set decentralizes and the chain’s credibility requires it.

And the sobering case is the gas-token contrast: Ethereum’s ETH, whatever its troubles, is bought by every user by necessity, a demand floor STABLE’s design explicitly forgoes. The dual-token chain trades away that mandatory bid for a better product, stable fees, and the trade’s honesty should be admired even as its consequence is priced: on this architecture, nothing is automatic; every path from network success to token value runs through an explicit decision, by governance, by the Foundation, by the patron, to build the connection.

STABLE is, in that sense, the cleanest experiment yet run on crypto’s oldest question. The chain can succeed enormously; the token participates only if someone decides it should; and the entire due diligence of holding it reduces to a judgment about whether, when, and how generously that decision gets made.

Watch the emission schedule against real fee revenue, watch the first governance votes that touch money, and watch for any fee-switch proposal in the Foundation’s pipeline, because on a chain that engineered the token out of the product, the only thing that can engineer it back in is a vote.

A closing note on how this experiment will actually be graded, because the token’s design guarantees the verdict arrives as a series of documents, not a moment.

The first grading event is every emissions disclosure: the schedule’s dollar value against the chain’s real USDT fee revenue is the dilution ratio, and its trend is the single most information-dense number the token will ever print.

The second is the first governance vote that moves money, a fee-tier change, a treasury deployment, an allowlist decision, because it will reveal whether tokenholder governance on a patron chain is a legislature or a suggestion box, and markets will reprice the governance premium accordingly within the week.

The third is any fee-routing proposal, the fork this guide has argued everything reduces to, and its absence is also information: each quarter the network grows while staking yield remains emission-funded is a quarter of evidence about which fork the ecosystem intends.

And the last is the slow one, validator-set composition, because the security argument matures only as the set opens beyond the founding ecosystem, converting the bond from ceremony into necessity.

None of these events is a price target, and that is the point: STABLE is a claim whose value will be legislated into existence, or not, by identifiable decisions on a public calendar, which makes it, whatever else it becomes, one of the most watchable experiments in token design now running. The chain’s users will never notice any of it, by design. The holders should notice nothing else.

One comparison from outside crypto rounds out the calibration, because the dual-token structure has a traditional-finance cousin worth naming: the exchange operator. A stock exchange’s product is other people’s securities, its fees are denominated in ordinary money, and its own listed shares confer exactly what STABLE confers, governance over the venue and a claim on whatever economics the operator chooses to route to shareholders.

Nobody needs exchange shares to trade on the exchange, and the shares are valuable anyway, because the operator routes real fee revenue to them; the fee switch, permanently on, is the entire business model. The analogy clarifies both what STABLE could become and what it is not yet: exchange operators are valuable because the routing decision was made at incorporation, in the corporate form itself, while a dual-token chain makes the same decision later, optionally, through governance, under a patron whose interests may prefer the revenue concentrated elsewhere.

The distance between STABLE today and the exchange-share model is exactly one decision wide, which is both the bull case’s simplicity and the bear case’s, and it returns the analysis to where the mechanical inventory left it: a token whose two real jobs are secure and decide, holding an option on a third job, collect, that only the second job can exercise.

Frequently Asked Questions What is the STABLE token in one sentence? STABLE is the native governance and staking token of StableChain, the Tether-ecosystem Layer 1: validators stake it to secure the network, and holders vote with it on protocol matters, while all user-facing activity, gas, transfers, and settlement, runs in USDT and USDT0, deliberately excluding the native token from the payment path.

Why would a chain design its own token out of the user experience? Because volatile gas is a payments-product defect. Requiring users to hold a fluctuating native asset to move stable dollars adds friction, unpredictable costs, and onboarding failure, so stablechains denominate fees in the stablecoin itself and exempt simple transfers entirely. The dual-token structure separates roles: stable asset for payments, native token for the security bond and governance, each doing what the other cannot.

If users never need it, where does demand for STABLE come from? Three sources. Security demand: validators and delegators must acquire and lock STABLE to earn staking rewards, and a chain settling large value structurally needs a large security budget. Governance demand: influence over commercially meaningful parameters, fee tiers, allowlists, treasury, is worth acquiring if those votes bind. And prospectively, fee routing: any future mechanism directing the chain’s USDT-denominated revenues to stakers, the fee-switch question that dominates the token’s long-term case.

What is a fee switch and why does it matter so much here? A fee switch routes a network’s real revenues to its tokenholders, through revenue-funded staking rewards, buybacks, or burns. It matters acutely for STABLE because the chain’s cash flows are all denominated in USDT: without routing, staking yield comes from STABLE emissions, which is dilution recycled as yield; with routing, the token becomes a claim on an actual payments business. The decision sits with governance and the Foundation, and no commitment has been made either way.

How does STABLE’s situation compare to Ethereum’s ETH? They occupy opposite ends of the design space. ETH is mandatory: every Ethereum user buys it for gas, creating an automatic demand floor tied to usage, and it doubles as the staking bond. STABLE forgoes the mandatory bid entirely for a better payments experience, keeping only the bond and governance roles. The trade means StableChain’s success does not automatically create STABLE demand; every connection must be built by explicit decision.

What are the main risks for STABLE holders? The governance-token failure mode: the network thriving while the token’s claims never mature, with emissions diluting holders faster than security and governance demand grow. Concentration risk: a patron-dominated ecosystem may keep economically consequential decisions outside tokenholder reach. And the structural gap between security-budget demand, which scales with what attackers could steal, and the network’s transaction volume, which can be orders of magnitude larger without touching the token.

What signals would show the token’s case strengthening? Real-fee staking yield: rewards funded by USDT fee revenue rather than emissions. Binding votes on money: governance decisions that actually set fee policy, allowlists, or treasury deployment. A published emission schedule declining against growing fee revenue. And validator-set decentralization that increases the security bond’s importance. The inverse signals, emission-funded yield, ceremonial votes, widening dilution, mark the cautionary path.

Is the dual-token model good or bad design? It is honest design with a hard consequence. Separating the payment asset from the security bond solves real problems: stable fees, spam-resistant security, and the world’s largest stablecoin gets a purpose-built rail from it. The consequence is that token value becomes a policy outcome rather than a mechanical one, decided by governance rather than usage. Holders are underwriting that policy process, which is a different investment than underwriting the network. This is educational information, not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Token designs, governance frameworks, and reward mechanisms described here can change through protocol decisions. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 24, 2026.

Amid Gaza Ruins, One Trader Keeps His Crypto Screens Running

The United States owes more than $39 trillion in gross federal debt. But here’s where it gets interesting: the composition of who’s actually lending America all that money is shifting in ways that should make both traditional finance and crypto investors pay very close attention.

Foreign investors hold approximately $9.1 to $9.5 trillion in US Treasuries, representing roughly 30% to 32% of the publicly held debt. That sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But it’s a dramatic decline from where things stood just over a decade ago, when foreign holders owned nearly 49% of publicly held US debt back in 2011-2012.

The great rotation away from Treasuries Japan remains the largest foreign holder at roughly $1.18 trillion, followed by the UK at approximately $866 billion and China at around $683 billion. China’s position is particularly notable because it has been steadily reducing its exposure for years, a trend that accelerates every time US-China tensions flare up.

The current account deficit sits close to 4% of GDP. Someone has to fund that gap. And increasingly, the “someone” isn’t a central bank in Tokyo or Beijing. It’s domestic mutual funds, the Federal Reserve’s residual holdings, and, in a twist that would have seemed absurd five years ago, a stablecoin company based in the British Virgin Islands.

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Recent reports indicate that foreign demand for US Treasuries is slowing, with several sovereign wealth funds and central banks diversifying into other countries’ government bonds.

Enter Tether, America’s unlikely creditor Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, was one of the top foreign net buyers of US Treasuries in 2024, purchasing approximately $33.1 billion on a net basis. A crypto company that didn’t exist 11 years ago is now a more aggressive buyer of American government debt than most countries.

This isn’t charity. Tether backs its stablecoin reserves primarily with short-dated US Treasury bills, which means every time someone mints new USDT, Tether essentially needs to go shopping for more government paper.

Tether’s Treasury holdings also create an unusual feedback loop. The more widely USDT is adopted globally, the more Treasuries Tether needs to buy, which in theory supports demand for US debt at precisely the moment when traditional foreign buyers are pulling back.

Why this matters for crypto and traditional investors The AI boom has already demonstrated a key dynamic, as private capital floods into US equities, particularly tech stocks, rather than parking in government bonds.

For crypto investors specifically, Tether’s growing role as a Treasury buyer introduces a novel form of systemic interconnection. A major disruption to USDT, whether from regulatory action, a de-pegging event, or a sudden wave of redemptions, could theoretically ripple into the Treasury market if Tether were forced to liquidate holdings quickly. The $33.1 billion in net purchases during 2024 alone makes Tether a meaningful participant, not just a rounding error.

On the flip side, several stablecoin bills currently moving through Congress would essentially mandate that issuers hold high-quality liquid assets like Treasuries. If those bills pass, the crypto industry could become an even larger structural buyer of US debt, partially filling the gap left by retreating foreign governments.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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From a pronunciation joke to a live memecoinIt began with a lighthearted video from Tether Wallet asking whether the stablecoin giant's name is pronounced "Teh-ther" or "Tee-ther." Tether CEO @paoloardoino quote-posted it with a single word: "Fefer" alongside a blue dinosaur meme. Traders took the cue and ran with it, minting $FEFER on @Stable within hours and turning a throwaway gag into the chain's first memecoin moment.

The token's rise was quick. It surpassed an $8.8 million market cap within a day of launch, peaking near $11 million before pulling back. On-chain data from StableScan showed 5,814 holders and more than 54,000 transfers, with the largest single wallet controlling just 3.66% of supply, suggesting a relatively distributed holder base for a token that young.

What the moment reveals about Stable's early tractionThe @Stable network itself is a USDT-gas Layer 1 blockchain backed by Bitfinex and affiliated with Tether. The project is described as a dedicated stablecoin and payments Layer 1 blockchain backed by Bitfinex and powered by USDT. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino serves as an advisor to Stable, reflecting the close relationship between the companies, which share common ownership through parent company iFinex. The chain is designed primarily for institutional payments and settlement, not retail speculation.

That makes the $FEFER episode a notable data point. A meme that spread from a CEO's social media post generated tens of thousands of on-chain transactions and drew thousands of new wallets to a network that had not yet seen meaningful retail activity. Stable's own account noted over 167,000 transactions in a 24-hour period as Fefer activity grew on the chain.

The pattern is not new to crypto. Culture and community tend to arrive on a chain before the payment infrastructure it was built for catches up. For Stable, a network with serious institutional ambitions, the irony is that its first viral moment came not from a PayPal integration or an Anchorage partnership, but from a CEO's dinosaur meme.

Sources
The Block: Stable launches mainnet and native token
CoinGecko: What Is Stable, Tether's Stablechain

July 22, 2026 at 5:00 PM EDT

Updated on

July 22, 2026 at 6:27 PM EDT

It was billed as cryptocurrency’s big moment, President Donald Trump’s first legislative victory in his drive to make the US the “crypto capital of the world.”

Surrounded by lawmakers and industry executives in the East Room of the White House, Trump signed the Genius Act into law a year ago this month, celebrating it as a step toward bringing digital assets into the mainstream of American finance.

By providing the first set of federal rules for a type of crypto known as stablecoins, the legislation aimed to inspire public confidence in a $300 billion marketplace. It promised protections against fraud by forcing companies to open their books. And it gave Congress a chance to follow through on attempts to address one of crypto’s most longstanding concerns — the persistent use of stablecoins among criminals, terrorists and sanctions evaders — by bringing companies under the watch of US regulators, whether they’re based in the US or not.

But in interviews and a court filing, an inside account of the negotiations surrounding the law has emerged: In the months before and after Trump took office, his advisers Howard Lutnick and Bo Hines worked behind the scenes to loosen those safeguards and shape the law in ways that benefited the world’s dominant stablecoin issuer, Tether. Among Trump’s advisers, Lutnick and Hines played the most formative roles in a legislative process that ultimately included measures favorable to Tether, according to people familiar with the discussions. The people, like dozens of others who provided details of negotiations surrounding the Genius Act for this story — crypto industry executives, lobbyists and current and former US government officials — requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the talks.

US President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act in the White House on July 18, 2025. He hailed the bill as a “giant step to cement American dominance of global finance and crypto technology.” Photographer: Al Drago/BloombergBefore Lutnick became Trump’s commerce secretary, he was chairman and chief executive officer of the Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, which manages Tether’s assets. From that position, he acted as a crisis manager throughout 2024, countering bad publicity about Tether and seeking to influence lawmakers on legislation the company opposed, according to congressional lobbying records, allegations contained in a federal court filing and one person who was briefed on those efforts.

After Trump took office, Hines was the closer. The then-29-year-old White House aide, a North Carolina entrepreneur and crypto investor who ran unsuccessful congressional campaigns as a Republican in 2022 and 2024, became the administration’s self-described “bully” on the bill. As negotiations neared the finish line, Hines said that a provision Tether wanted was a “red line” for the White House, according to three other people familiar with the matter.

This account of how the legislation took shape shows the previously unreported steps that first Lutnick, then Hines took that benefited Tether, which controls about 60% of the global stablecoin market. And it sheds new light on the ways that the administration’s policymaking has aligned with its appointees’ financial interests. Both Hines and Lutnick have received significant benefits from the company.

Over an 18-month period that began in 2024 and ended shortly after the passage of the Genius Act, Tether executives:

Sold the rights to a multibillion-dollar stake in their company to Lutnick’s financial services firm in April 2024 for $600 million, a price that Tether’s chairman described to a business associate as “bloody cheap.”

Invested $775 million in December 2024 in Rumble Inc., a money-losing technology company that has a partnership agreement with the unprofitable firm that runs Trump’s Truth Social platform and counts several Trump associates as investors.

Hired Hines for an executive position in August 2025, roughly one month after the bill was signed.

Made a loan to a trust benefiting Lutnick’s children as they were purchasing their father’s multibillion-dollar business interests in October 2025.

As part of a federal ethics agreement required of cabinet appointees, Lutnick had pledged to sell his stake in Cantor Fitzgerald and to recuse himself from matters that might present a conflict of interest. A spokesperson for the Commerce Department did not answer detailed questions for this story but said Lutnick complied with the terms of that agreement; divested from his holdings, including Tether; and “was not involved in any matters relating to the Genius Act’s stablecoin provisions.”

Hines didn’t respond to detailed requests for comment. Neither did the White House.

Tether said in a statement that the company “strongly rejects any suggestion that its engagement with policymakers regarding stablecoin legislation was improper” and that it regularly interacts with regulators, legislators and law enforcement officials “lawfully, transparently, and alongside a broad range of market participants.” The company also said the Genius Act provides no “special advantages to Tether,” arguing that the new US regulatory plans will “apply across the industry to any issuer seeking to operate under the framework.”

The bill drew intense lobbying from all corners of finance, including crypto exchanges, credit card companies and community banks. But Tether is by far the industry’s dominant issuer — its biggest competitor is half its size — and it had the most at stake during the 2025 discussions.

Since the law was signed, Tether, which operates from El Salvador, has continued to grow. It launched a new US token to reach American consumers and comply with the rules. Yet its core product remains the world’s most widely used stablecoin — and a go-to currency for terrorists, North Korean hackers and sanctioned entities in both Iran and Russia, according to reports compiled by industry researchers and government officials. Under the Genius Act’s provisions, that coin, known as USDT, may never be subject to regulation by US authorities.

The Genius Act’s final form contained provisions that benefited Tether and differed from federal lawmakers’ previous attempts to regulate stablecoins, which offer users convenience and pseudo-anonymity — meaning their actual identities are hidden even though their alphanumeric wallet addresses remain permanently public on the blockchain.

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In 2023 and 2024, members of Congress proposed bipartisan legislation that aimed to push foreign companies such as Tether to submit to US regulatory scrutiny — including anti-money-laundering rules — if they wanted to sell stablecoins in the US.

The Genius Act relaxed that requirement. A provision that critics call the “reciprocity loophole” would allow Tether’s USDT to be regulated by El Salvador, where the company is building a new headquarters, if the US Treasury secretary determines the Salvadoran regulatory scheme is comparable to the US approach. Rules governing such determinations are still being drafted.

Another change limited stablecoin issuers’ responsibility for ensuring that their tokens aren’t misused by criminals, terrorists or sanctions evaders. That language, known as the “defi loophole,” means that companies like Tether aren’t responsible for tracking their products on secondary markets known as decentralized finance, or “defi,” platforms. Unlike those who buy tokens through banks or exchanges, such users can trade directly on the blockchain without identifying who they are or how they intend to use the funds.

The legislation also created a three-year grace period for selling stablecoins in the US before their issuers have to comply with its terms. As lawmakers negotiated the bill’s final details, some Democrats proposed a tighter time frame, 18 months, but Tether wanted three years, according to people familiar with its position. At that point, Hines stepped in.

In negotiations, he told people that Tether was important to the White House and Republicans should stand firm. Keeping the three-year grace period was a “red line,” Hines said, according to three people familiar with his conversations.

Bo Hines, whom Trump named executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, took a leadership role in pushing the Genius Act through Congress. Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/BloombergSome financial experts warn that these provisions may undermine US attempts to fight money laundering by criminals and sanctioned entities while complicating Trump’s stated goal of making the US the world’s leader in digital currencies.

Timothy Massad, a former assistant secretary at the US Treasury Department during President Barack Obama’s administration, said the failure to close these so-called loopholes might put US crypto companies at a competitive disadvantage by allowing foreign issuers to sidestep costly anti-money-laundering regulations. It could also weaken the dollar, he said.

“If we want the dollar to remain the strong reserve currency of the world, we shouldn’t enable terrorists and sanctioned individuals and criminals to move dollars anonymously,” said Massad, who also served as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2014 to 2017.

Every form of currency is vulnerable to misuse for illicit transactions. But since it introduced USDT in 2014, Tether has faced regular questions about the scrutiny it brings to its customers. In response, the company had argued that its location overseas meant it could resist what it described as US regulatory overreach. But that position evolved over time, and in December 2023, Tether announced a policy of voluntarily freezing wallets of any people or entities sanctioned by the US Treasury.

Investigators continued to find evidence that USDT was being used for such activities as the fentanyl trade in Mexico and Russian sanctions evasion. A January 2024 UN report called USDT “a preferred choice” for crypto money launderers in Southeast Asia. That year, President Joe Biden’s National Security Council debated whether to ban Tether from selling its token in the US, according to two people familiar with the talks, who asked not to be named to discuss a sensitive matter.

Ultimately, that proposal was disregarded after law enforcement officials argued that they could track illicit finance through USDT transactions. Over time, federal law enforcement officials have praised Tether for becoming more helpful in freezing tokens used by bad actors.

“The company has built one of the most effective law enforcement cooperation programs in global finance,” Tether’s spokesman said in response to questions. The company said it’s committed to deterring financial crime, and the Genius Act will strengthen such efforts.

Even so, throughout the debates over the Genius Act — and since then — USDT has remained a frequent choice for illicit users.

Throughout 2025, the sanctioned Central Bank of Iran purchased $507 million of Tether’s USDT, according to Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm widely used by leading digital assets companies and traditional banks. That July, the same month Trump signed the act, Elliptic found that almost $2.5 billion worth of Tether’s USDT was received by wallets linked to Russian companies that, according to the Treasury Department, provide “cross-border settlement platforms for sanctions evasion.”

This year alone, more than $4 billion worth of the token was used in illicit marketplaces favored by Chinese scam networks — which perpetrate crimes including crypto cons known as pig butchering, impersonation frauds and sextortion — according to data by Elliptic.

And in the US, federal prosecutors across the country have filed scores of claims since July 2025 seeking to seize at least $172 million worth of USDT that they said was used unlawfully, according to court records.

Tether has more than twice as many tokens in circulation as its biggest competitor, Circle Internet Group Inc., but has fewer than half as many employees and uses contractors to conduct some of its analysis of suspicious transactions. Tether declined to answer specific questions about the size of its compliance department. But the company said it “works directly and regularly with over 340 law enforcement agencies across 67 jurisdictions to identify, freeze, and help recover assets linked to illicit activity.”

“This is not theoretical compliance but measurable, operational cooperation that no financial institution, including many traditional banks, can match,” said the company spokesman.

Lutnick’s CampaignsWhen Lutnick’s firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, began managing Tether’s reserves in 2021, the investment banker had already known Trump for decades. By that time, Trump was a one-term president, seeking a return to the White House. Tether was a hugely profitable company with an image problem. In 2024, Lutnick campaigned hard for them both.

Despite the importance of assuring buyers that its tokens are backed by safe assets, Tether has never published an independent audit detailing its reserves. In 2021, the company and a related exchange paid $61 million to settle claims brought by federal regulators and New York State (where it is banned from operating) that Tether misled investors about its reserves. Tether acknowledged no wrongdoing in the settlements. As written, the Genius Act will require stablecoin issuers to publish annual audits. Tether announced this year that it had hired an auditor, though it hasn’t disclosed any plans for releasing an audit.

Howard Lutnick, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald at the time, at the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2024. Source: BloombergAmid questions about Tether’s reserves, Lutnick came to the company’s public defense. In January 2024, he traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and declared on Bloomberg TV: “They have the money they say they have.”

The following month, Lutnick traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Tether’s chairman, Giancarlo Devasini, and the country’s crypto-friendly President Nayib Bukele, the self-styled “world’s coolest dictator.” Last year, Tether announced plans to relocate its headquarters to the country’s capital, San Salvador.

And in April 2024, Cantor Fitzgerald acquired the right to a 5% stake in Tether through a $600 million convertible bond — a transaction that wasn’t publicly reported until November, after Trump won the presidency. The price was a remarkable discount, based on Tether’s own accounting: In 2024, it reported profit of about $13 billion, which suggests the company was worth at least $130 billion, according to a benchmark of publicly listed financial firms. At that level, Cantor’s $600 million stake was worth more than $6 billion on paper.

Devasini called the price Cantor paid “bloody cheap,” according to Cory Klippsten, a Bitcoin entrepreneur who met with Tether executives and Lutnick in 2024.

Klippsten was involved in a business partnership with Tether that ultimately broke down, and the sides wound up in litigation. In court filings, Klippsten has accused Tether executives of poaching his employees, code and other trade secrets and reneging on a deal; Tether has accused Klippsten of improperly using Tether’s investment as collateral in a separate transaction. As part of the litigation, Klippsten is seeking to depose Lutnick and review documents about Cantor Fitzgerald’s relationship with Tether. An attorney for Lutnick said in court that the commerce secretary had no role in the dispute and that the request is meant to “harass and embarrass” Lutnick.

In a March court filing, Klippsten said he had taken contemporaneous notes detailing his conversations with Devasini. He recounted some of those notes in filings — including the “bloody cheap” remark. The filing describes Cantor’s convertible bond as “implicit compensation for acting as Tether’s advocate in Washington and the media.”

Stalled LegislationMembers of Congress had developed their own concerns. In late 2023, Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming co-signed a letter urging the Justice Department to determine whether Tether was “providing material support and resources” to terrorism organizations, including Hamas, during the deadly attacks that October in Israel. In April 2024, Lummis and Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced a bill that could have required any stablecoin issuer doing business in the US to submit to US anti-money-laundering restrictions and disclosure requirements.

At the time, Lummis made clear that to enter the US market, Tether would have to comply with US rules. “So Tether, if it chooses to remain offshore, if it’s happier with a different regulator, that’s a business choice for them,” she told CoinDesk shortly after announcing the new legislation. “But if they want the US Good Housekeeping seal of approval on their product, and we hope they will, that they’ll come into compliance in the US.”

That July, Lutnick took another opportunity to defend Tether at the 2024 Bitcoin conference in Nashville, where Trump gave the keynote address. “We would never, ever be associated with a company that has anything to do with jihad,” Lutnick said, his voice rising in anger as he reminded the audience that more than 650 Cantor employees, including his brother, had died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack on the World Trade Center. “And it disgusts me.”

Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, in July 2024. Photographer: Brett Carlsen/BloombergAfter that speech, Trump — who had pivoted from crypto skeptic to crypto supporter in 2024 as he and his family members prepared to invest in the industry — invited Lutnick to join him on his campaign plane and asked him to be co-chairman of his transition committee. They flew to Minnesota, where Lutnick warmed up the crowd on stage before then-Senator JD Vance of Ohio, another vocal crypto advocate, spoke.

Trump’s surging candidacy buoyed the mood among Tether executives, according to Klippsten. “They have HOPE right now,” his notes say. “They could fly to NYC. Go on CNBC. That’s what Trump is offering them.”

Lutnick traveled in 2024 to Washington, where Cantor Fitzgerald’s lobbyists were engaging with members of Congress on stablecoin bills circulating in the House and Senate. He had a meeting with North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry, then-chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to discuss how a new law would affect a foreign company like Tether, according to a person familiar with the talks. McHenry didn’t respond to requests for comment. Lutnick also met with Lummis in September, although a spokesperson for the senator said the discussion focused on a potential Trump transition team and only briefly touched on her concerns about Tether and financial crimes.

The spokesperson said that Lummis “was never urged to back off of her support” for her bill, “nor was she pressured in any manner by Secretary Lutnick or those around him to make changes.”

One of Klippsten’s notes, recounted in a court filing, says that Devasini, Tether’s chairman, told him: “According to Howard, he managed to kill every bill about stablecoins, crypto, etc. There’s still some days before Congress comes to a halt. Howard says don’t expect anything upsetting.”

The bills went nowhere. The next year, both Lummis and Gillibrand voted for the Genius Act, including its provision allowing for “reciprocal” regulation by foreign countries. A spokesman for Gillibrand declined to comment on her vote. A spokesperson for Lummis said it’s not unusual for senators to “vote for something that doesn’t perfectly reflect their preferred way of regulating.” This year, Lummis is leading Senate discussions on a bill that would establish a regulatory framework for the rest of the crypto industry, beyond stablecoins.

After Trump’s November 2024 victory, Cantor helped arrange a new investment for Tether that put the stablecoin issuer more firmly into Trump’s business orbit. Around Christmas, the company invested $775 million in Rumble, the conservative video streaming company that hosts Trump’s Truth Social media platform and provides it with cloud infrastructure and advertising services.

The investment came at an unusual time; Rumble had run up $338 million in losses that year. The company, which bills itself as a “freedom-first” alternative to livestreaming and video content, counted several Trump allies who eventually joined his second administration among its investors: Vice President Vance; former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino; and former White House special adviser for AI and crypto David Sacks.

Tether’s investment set off a temporary spike in Rumble’s share price, and it closed on Dec. 26 at $16.27, a 126% gain since the day of the announcement. Rumble, which has rebranded itself as RUM Group Inc., devoted almost 68% of Tether’s investment, $525 million, to share buybacks from “certain members of key management.” Since then, Tether has gradually increased its equity stake in Rumble; it now amounts to roughly $875 million.

“Tether’s investment in Rumble reflects our shared values of decentralization, transparency and fundamental right to free expression,” Tether’s chief executive officer, Paolo Ardoino, said at the time. The company said roughly $250 million of its infusion would go for “growth initiatives,” including a crypto payments platform.

As Trump’s second administration took shape, the White House handed responsibility for shepherding stablecoin legislation to a former college football player whose introduction to cryptocurrency came when he played in the 2014 Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl.

‘Hi, Bo!’As a Washington newcomer, Bo Hines didn’t have a resume to match the crypto industry leaders and congressional staffers he met with regularly. But at 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds, he had other attributes welcome in Trump’s White House: a camera-ready jaw line, a staunch belief in the MAGA agenda and a documented refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. Also, during the fall of 2024, a business he operated with his father donated $1 million in billboard advertising to a political action committee supporting Trump’s campaign.

As the president’s choice to head the new administration’s council on digital assets, Hines worked on a range of issues, from establishing a federal stockpile of digital currencies to recommending new guidelines for regulation of crypto. A top priority was the Genius Act.

By early February 2025, the bill was circulating in Washington. Later that month, as crypto executives and lawmakers gathered at Washington’s Willard Hotel to discuss the bill, a surprise visitor showed up, according to two people who attended: Tether’s Ardoino. He told his fellow attendees that his company was serious about deterring money laundering, the people said.

In March, Ardoino posted photos of himself at the US Capitol and the White House. He told the New York Times that he’d been careful not to speak with Lutnick after Lutnick’s February confirmation as commerce secretary, to avoid any conflicts of interest.

That same month, Tether hired a Washington lobbyist who’d been representing Cantor Fitzgerald on stablecoin-related issues since 2024: Jeff Miller. Miller served in leadership roles for both of Trump’s inauguration committees, and his firm had become one of Washington’s most successful during Trump’s first term. Throughout 2025, Miller Strategies was paid $570,000 — with $480,000 from Cantor and $90,000 from Tether. “It’s very important that our voice is properly heard,” Ardoino told Bloomberg TV.

Hines, meanwhile, settled into his job. He argued that lawmakers had no right to oppose the president’s wishes, said people familiar with the matter, and pressured them to reach speedy agreements. He also began signaling that he considered concerns about the illicit use of digital tokens to be overblown. “You’re a pretty dumb criminal if you want to use digital assets to do something nefarious because that can be traced publicly in many cases,” he said during an April interview with Bitcoin Magazine.

The earliest drafts of the Genius Act troubled Tether’s competitors and Democratic lawmakers because it walked back restrictions that had been written into the 2024 versions of stablecoin legislation.

In May, a group of Democrats — including those seen as moderates on crypto — revolted, temporarily blocking the measure from advancing. In a closed-door meeting with other Democrats, two people familiar with the matter said, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York implored his colleagues to review records the Biden administration’s National Security Council had compiled about Tether’s practices and make certain the Genius Act provided strong enough safeguards to deter money laundering by US adversaries.

That month, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren urged other Democrats to reject the latest version of the bill, which she said loosened the rules to further benefit Tether.

Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned the Genius Act’s provisions. Source: Senator Elizabeth Warren/YouTubeHines brushed such concerns aside, according to people familiar with the discussions. He often invoked Trump, saying that the president wanted a deal done soon. Republican legislative leaders pressed on with the bill.

A late hurdle was the timing of the bill’s provisions. During private negotiations, Hines insisted that Republicans refuse to drop the three-year grace period — even though Democrats were seeking to cut it in half. In meetings, he said that Tether wanted three years, said three people familiar with the matter.

Ultimately, Hines prevailed. The July bill signing ceremony brought many of the bill’s important supporters together at the White House.

“Where’s Bo Hines?” Trump asked from the dais, scanning until he spotted him in the front row. “Hi, Bo! And Bo was a great football player, right? Bo was a great football player, one of the better players in college football so I know you from that also.” (Hines was a standout receiver for the North Carolina State Wolfpack in 2014; he subsequently transferred to Yale University, where shoulder injuries hampered his football career.)

Hines stood to a round of applause and sat down. To his immediate right, also in the front row, was Tether’s CEO, Ardoino. One month later, Tether announced that it was hiring Hines as an adviser. Soon thereafter, he was promoted to chief executive of Tether’s new US product called USAT. This new token accounts for just a fraction of Tether’s business, with roughly $186 million of them in circulation. Hines told a crypto conference last year that he expects both USAT and USDT to meet Genius Act standards.

Also seated in the signing ceremony’s front row, between Hines and Vice President Vance, was Lutnick. Trump called on him to stand for applause, praising his work on tariff negotiations. “You have done a great job, Howard,” the president said.

Three months later, Lutnick completed the sale of Cantor Fitzgerald to trusts benefiting his children. The day after it closed, a document was filed in New York that showed Tether had loaned one of those trusts an undisclosed sum of money.

Lutnick has declined to reveal what his children paid for his holdings or whether the loan they received from Tether was used to finance the transaction. That year, Tether had been speaking to investors about a $500 billion capital raise. At that valuation, Cantor Fitzgerald’s potential 5% stake in the company would have been worth $25 billion on paper.

(Updates to say in 15th paragraph that Tether's statement came directly from the company.)

July 22, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

It was billed as cryptocurrency’s big moment, President Donald Trump’s first legislative victory in his drive to make the US the “crypto capital of the world.”

Surrounded by lawmakers and industry executives in the East Room of the White House, Trump signed the Genius Act into law a year ago this month, celebrating it as a step toward bringing digital assets into the mainstream of American finance.

By providing the first set of federal rules for a type of crypto known as stablecoins, the legislation aimed to inspire public confidence in a $300 billion marketplace. It promised protections against ...

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In brief Jack Mallers stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital, announcing his return to Bitcoin payments firm Strike—which will remain an independent company. Tether's plan to merge Twenty One, Strike, and Elektron Energy into a single publicly traded Bitcoin giant has been abandoned. XXI shares fell nearly 18% on Tuesday, extending a decline that has taken the stock down more than 80% from its highs of last year. Jack Mallers has stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital, and investors didn't take it well.

Shares of the Bitcoin treasury company—a publicly traded firm that holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet, letting regular investors gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without buying it directly—dropped nearly 15% on Tuesday.

Mallers co-founded Twenty One alongside Tether—the issuer of USDT, the world's most widely used dollar-pegged stablecoin (a digital token that holds a fixed value of one dollar and functions as the backbone of crypto trading)—and listed the company on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2025 through a SPAC merger. A SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, is a blank check shell firm created specifically to take other companies public faster than a traditional IPO allows.

Twenty One still holds 43,514 BTC. At current prices, that balance sheet is worth more than $4 billion, ranking it second among all public companies for Bitcoin holdings, just behind Michael Saylor's Strategy. Strategy is the company that effectively pioneered the corporate Bitcoin treasury playbook in 2020—borrowing money to buy Bitcoin at scale and daring anyone to tell them it was a bad idea.

The merger that never happenedMallers' exit comes packaged with worse news. Tether's plan to merge three Bitcoin businesses into a single publicly traded entity has officially collapsed, per Bloomberg. The proposed combination would have united Twenty One's treasury operations, Strike's Bitcoin payments and lending platform (which operates in more than 100 countries), and Elektron Energy's mining infrastructure under one publicly listed company.

Tether first pitched the idea in April 2026 at the Bitcoin Conference, and Mallers endorsed it publicly. As Decrypt reported, the deal was billed as a move to create "the premier listed Bitcoin company in the world," combining mining, payments, and treasury management in one stock. Mallers was set to lead the combined entity; Elektron Energy founder Raphael Zagury was slated to become president.

That structure is done. Strike will remain a standalone company. Twenty One and Elektron are still in early discussions about a potential two-way deal, but no agreement has been confirmed or guaranteed.

Mallers kept it brief on X. "This wasn't an easy decision, but it was the right one," he wrote. "My life's work remains Bitcoin. My Bitcoin company is Strike. The work continues."

I've decided to step down as CEO of Twenty One.

This wasn't an easy decision, but it was the right one. This experience brought tremendous clarity about who I am and what I want to build.

My life's work remains Bitcoin. My Bitcoin company is @Strike.

The work continues. pic.twitter.com/L70YFYPt11

— Jack Mallers (@jackmallers) July 21, 2026

Raphael Zagury—founder of Elektron Energy and a former managing director at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch and a vice president at Goldman Sachs—has been named the new CEO. His message to investors sounds nothing like Mallers'.

Where Mallers built Twenty One’s identity around aggressive Bitcoin accumulation, Zagury is promising institutional discipline. Per Tether's official announcement, Zagury said Twenty One "should be measured by the cash flow it generates and the discipline with which it allocates capital."

Bitcoin treasury companies as a category have faced growing skepticism since their initial surge. Twenty One company shares hit a 52-week high of $31.51 before sliding to a low of $4.81. In May 2026, Tether moved to consolidate control by buying out SoftBank's roughly 25% stake—a position the Japanese investment giant had originally paid $999.3 million to acquire.

Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

Jack Mallers Questioned MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Strategy, Now He’s Stepping Down From Twenty One

Key Highlights Table of Contents

Key HighlightsStrike Chooses Independence as Leadership ReshufflesTwenty One Capital Refines Bitcoin-Centric VisionContext Behind Tether’s Strategic Reconfiguration Strike withdraws from proposed merger with Twenty One Capital and Elektron Energy

Jack Mallers resigns from Twenty One Capital CEO position while maintaining Strike leadership

Elektron Energy and Twenty One Capital maintain ongoing merger discussions

Tether adjusts corporate strategy following Strike’s departure from deal

Twenty One Capital pivots direction with new leadership structure

A Tether-supported initiative to merge Twenty One Capital, Strike, and Elektron Energy has collapsed following Strike’s decision to withdraw from the arrangement. Jack Mallers is stepping away from his position at Twenty One Capital while maintaining his leadership role at Strike. Meanwhile, Twenty One Capital and Elektron Energy are exploring a potential partnership under revised management as both organizations recalibrate their strategic approaches.

Strike Chooses Independence as Leadership Reshuffles The original merger plan aimed to consolidate Bitcoin treasury management, cryptocurrency payment processing, and mining infrastructure within a single publicly-traded entity. That vision has been abandoned. Strike has opted to maintain its autonomous operations.

Jack Mallers has relinquished his chief executive position at Twenty One Capital, the role he held since the company’s inception. Despite this departure, he retains his CEO position at Strike and will continue guiding its strategic development. Raphael Zagury, previously heading Elektron Energy, has transitioned into the leadership role at Twenty One Capital.

According to a Bloomberg report, both Strike and Twenty One Capital have verified that the three-way merger has been terminated. Nevertheless, negotiations between Twenty One Capital and Elektron Energy continue to progress. Tether maintains controlling ownership positions in both entities.

Twenty One Capital Refines Bitcoin-Centric Vision Tether unveiled the merger initiative in April, aiming to consolidate three distinct cryptocurrency enterprises into one publicly-listed corporation. The framework positioned Twenty One Capital as the Bitcoin treasury arm, Strike as the payment infrastructure provider, and Elektron Energy as the mining division. The reconfigured approach now eliminates Strike from consideration.

Raphael Zagury assumes control of Twenty One Capital’s direction following his appointment as chief executive. The organization seeks to reinforce its operational infrastructure, governance protocols, and capital markets presence. Furthermore, leadership is determined to evolve beyond passive Bitcoin accumulation.

The refreshed approach encompasses acquiring operational enterprises and optimizing capital deployment. Twenty One Capital intends to establish Bitcoin-collateralized lending platforms while diversifying financing mechanisms. The firm also targets the creation of more robust and consistent revenue streams.

Context Behind Tether’s Strategic Reconfiguration Twenty One Capital debuted in 2025 with financial support from Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank. Tether subsequently purchased SoftBank’s equity position, consolidating greater authority over the enterprise. The stablecoin provider has simultaneously broadened its portfolio across Bitcoin mining and digital infrastructure investments.

Previous merger proposals had garnered endorsement from Tether, which planned to approve the consolidation of these operations. The arrangement sought to establish a unified public entity encompassing treasury operations, payment systems, and mining activities. Ultimately, the parties withdrew from this comprehensive framework prior to finalization.

Strike has pursued independent expansion throughout this timeframe. The platform obtained a New York BitLicense and a money transmitter license from the New York Department of Financial Services in March. Elektron Energy maintains operational control of roughly 50 exahashes per second in Bitcoin mining power while keeping production expenses beneath current Bitcoin valuations.

Oliver Dale

Editor-in-Chief of Blockonomi and founder of Kooc Media, A UK-Based Online Media Company. Believer in Open-Source Software, Blockchain Technology & a Free and Fair Internet for all. His writing has been quoted by Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Investopedia, The New Yorker, Forbes, Techcrunch & More. Contact [email protected]

Tue, 21/07/2026 - 9:19

Tether advisor Gabor Gurbacs breaks down why $65,000 Bitcoin is structurally lightyears ahead of 2021's leverage-heavy top.

Cover image via depositphotos.com Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Bitcoin's current price in the $64,000–$65,000 range is giving retail investors a sense of déjà vu and mild anxiety, as this is exactly where the asset stalled during the previous cycle. However, major players see a completely different story in the chart. Tether adviser Gabor Gurbacs said that Bitcoin is now "massively undervalued" at these levels.

His main argument is that the price has remained the same, but the internal structure of the market has been completely transformed. 

While the 2021 all-time high was driven by pure hype, regulatory uncertainty, and excessive leverage, by July 2026 the landscape had changed beyond recognition, with spot ETFs, interbank gateways for institutional investors, and clear rules established by governments.

HOT Stories

Bitcoin price chart with recent post from Gabor Gurbacs, Source: TradingViewAccording to Gurbacs, once the market clears out the remaining leveraged speculators, real price discovery will begin.

Why institutional players want $65,000 BitcoinData from the SoSoValue analytics platform supports the Tether adviser's view and closely reflects actual financial flows:

Funds are buying the sideways market: Major capital is methodically accumulating during the current consolidation. During the July 20 trading session, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $226.92 million, with these purchases taking place while Bitcoin traded at $65,142.Five-day buying rally: Institutional investors are showing consistent interest after closing every session last week with positive inflows ranging from $79 million to $181 million per day. June's outflows have now been fully offset.Capital base: Total net assets under management in Bitcoin ETFs have approached $79.16 billion.Bitstamp's technical chart shows that after the spring correction from the peak near $126,000, Bitcoin found a solid bottom in the $55,700–$58,200 zone. The asset is now holding around $64,210, while indicators, including the daily RSI, suggest that buyers are taking control.

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The main conclusion from the current news flow is that the $64,000–$65,000 range is no longer the "dangerous peak" it appeared to be five years ago. For Wall Street, it is now a comfortable accumulation zone and a new reinforced foundation from which major capital is preparing to push the market higher.

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USDT, the stablecoin that essentially functions as crypto’s version of the US dollar, just got a lot lighter. Tether’s flagship token has seen its market capitalization drop by approximately $5.4 billion over the past 60 days, falling from a peak near $190 billion in May 2026 to roughly $184 billion as of late July.

The numbers behind the decline As of July 21, 2026, Tether reports USDT net circulation at approximately $184.14 billion, a figure corroborated by analytics platforms including CoinGecko and DeFiLlama. The token peaked near $190 billion in May, meaning the total drawdown is closer to $6 billion when measured from that high-water mark.

The broader stablecoin market has contracted by roughly $10 billion since its May peak, with a $7.7 billion decline logged in June alone. That means USDT and its closest competitor USDC account for a significant chunk of the overall pullback.

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Earlier this year, USDT experienced a comparatively modest $1.5 billion supply drop in February. The current multi-month trend represents one of the most significant sustained pullbacks since the turbulent 2022-2023 period.

Tether’s financial health tells a different story Tether posted a Q1 2026 profit of $1.04 billion and maintains a reserve buffer of $8.23 billion above and beyond its token obligations.

The company still commands roughly 58% of the total stablecoin market, which stood at around $321 billion as of April 2026 data. Even after shedding billions in supply, USDT remains the undisputed heavyweight of the stablecoin world.

What this means for investors A $5.4 billion decline in USDT supply over 60 days is worth monitoring but not necessarily alarming in isolation. The broader stablecoin market still sits well above $300 billion, and Tether’s financial position remains robust by any reasonable measure.

For traders actively positioning in crypto markets, the practical takeaway is straightforward: watch stablecoin flows as closely as you watch price charts. The $184 billion figure for USDT is still enormous by any historical standard.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Strike will remain a standalone company after the proposed three-way merger was scrapped, while Twenty One Capital and Elektron continue discussions, Bloomberg reported.

A proposed merger involving Tether-backed crypto companies Twenty One Capital, Strike and Elektron Energy has reportedly been scrapped.

Jack Mallers will step down as CEO of Twenty One Capital while remaining CEO of Strike, according to Bloomberg. Elektron Energy CEO Raphael Zagury has been appointed to succeed Mallers.

Strike will continue operating as a standalone company instead of combining with Twenty One Capital. Discussions between Twenty One and Elektron are continuing, Bloomberg reported. Tether holds majority stakes in both companies.

Twenty One’s (XXI) NYSE-traded shares were little changed in Tuesday’s premarket activity.

As Cointelegraph reported in April, Tether said it planned to vote in favor of a proposed merger between Twenty One Capital and Mallers’ Bitcoin payments company, Strike. The proposal also envisioned merging the combined company with Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy.

Twenty One Capital launched in 2025 with backing from Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald and SoftBank. Tether bought SoftBank’s stake in the company in May.

Twenty One held 43,514 Bitcoin at the time of writing, making it the world’s second-largest corporate BTC holder behind Michael Saylor’s Strategy, according to tracking website BitcoinTreasuries.

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

July 21, 2026, 11:00 AM UTC

A proposed merger of three crypto firms has been scrapped, with one of their leaders stepping down and another consolidating power across the Tether-backed franchise.

Twenty One Capital, Strike and Elektron Energy no longer plan to combine, according to details the companies shared with Bloomberg News. Jack Mallers — the chief executive officer of Twenty One Capital and Strike, and a prominent name in crypto circles — has stepped down from his role at Twenty One Capital, while Elektron CEO Raphael Zagury is taking over that position.

Strike intends to remain a standalone company, according to a statement. ...

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The US Treasury just proved, again, that stablecoins on public blockchains are not exactly the untraceable getaway vehicle some sanctioned regimes hoped they’d be. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned four Tron blockchain wallets linked to Iran’s Central Bank, Bank Markazi, freezing over $130 million in digital assets, primarily USDT.

The wallets were tied to financial activities associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Tether, the company behind USDT, coordinated directly with OFAC to freeze approximately $131 million across the four addresses, which had cumulatively received more than $165 million in stablecoins before the hammer dropped.

A pattern of escalating financial pressure Back in April 2026, OFAC froze $344.2 million in two separate wallets also linked to the Central Bank of Iran. Then in June 2026, the US imposed sanctions on major Iranian digital asset exchanges, including Nobitex and Bitpin. Now this latest action in mid-July adds another $131 million to the frozen pile.

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In roughly three months, US authorities have immobilized nearly half a billion dollars in crypto assets connected to Iranian state financial infrastructure.

Iran has built a digital asset ecosystem estimated at around $7.8 billion, with Nobitex alone handling more than 50% of the country’s crypto inflows in 2025.

Why Tron and USDT keep showing up Tron offers low transaction fees and fast settlement times. USDT provides dollar-denominated stability without needing a US bank account. For entities under sanctions, that combination is irresistible.

USDT has a built-in kill switch. Tether, as the centralized issuer, has the technical capability to freeze any USDT held at a specific wallet address. When OFAC designates an address, Tether can and does blacklist it, rendering the tokens unmovable. This is fundamentally different from, say, holding Bitcoin or Ether, where no single entity can freeze your funds.

What this means for investors The immediate market impact of freezing $131 million is negligible in the context of USDT’s total supply, which sits well north of $100 billion.

For exchanges, the June 2026 sanctions against Nobitex and Bitpin were a message to every exchange in every jurisdiction: know your customer, or become the next target.

Traders and investors holding USDT should understand the trade-off they’re making. Centralized stablecoins offer stability and liquidity, but they also offer a single point of regulatory control. USDT is fundamentally a permissioned asset, not a permissionless one, regardless of which blockchain it sits on.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The Strike founder is leaving the Tether-controlled treasury company after a board disagreement, as a proposed three-way merger with Strike and Elektron Energy collapses.

Original Image Credit: JP 3D / Shutterstock.com

Posted July 21, 2026 at 11:12 am EST.

Bitcoin financial-services company Strike founder Jack Mallers has stepped down as chief executive of Twenty One Capital, the Tether-controlled treasury company he helped launch. In a video statement posted to X, Mallers said he had decided to leave to return to Strike.

Mallers tied his departure to a disagreement over direction, saying that over time “the board and I did not agree on the path toward building for that vision.” He described the split as amicable, saying no one had acted in bad faith.

Twenty One said its board appointed Raphael Zagury, founder and chief executive of Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy and an existing company director, as CEO effective July 20. Zagury and Mallers are working together on an orderly transition, Twenty One said.

Tether’s Three-Way Merger Falls Apart The leadership change came alongside confirmation that Strike is pulling out of Tether Investments’ proposed three-way merger folding Twenty One, Strike, and Elektron into a single listed platform spanning treasury, mining, financial services, and capital markets. Twenty One now says Strike will stay independent and is off the table as a merger partner. A two-way tie-up with Elektron stays under evaluation but at a preliminary stage, with no assurance it closes.

Twenty One, meanwhile, outlined a refreshed strategy centered on operating businesses, disciplined capital allocation, and Bitcoin-backed lending.

“My job is to build the operating company around it, with the discipline, governance, and executional rigor of an institution,” Zagury said in a statement shared by Twenty One. “I believe our business will perform best when we also focus on the cash flow we generate and the rigor with which we allocate capital, not only by the Bitcoin we hold.”

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AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.

Circle Wants to Own Crypto’s Financial Stack, but Tether Still Owns the Dollar

Tether Gold (XAU₮) has secured formal recognition as an Accepted Spot Commodity within Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), marking a significant development for regulated digital asset offerings in the United Arab Emirates.

Tether Gold gains regulated status in Abu DhabiADGM’s approval enables licensed companies to offer products and services involving Tether Gold, a blockchain-based token representing physical gold. The announcement was released by Tether, a major issuer of popular stablecoins including USD₮ (commonly known as USDT), through its official website and X account on July 20.

Tether stated that it engaged in ongoing discussions with ADGM, focusing on compliance, transparency, and operational resilience, before the authority formally granted XAU₮ its accepted commodity status.

Tether revealed that the new recognition “demonstrates the growing confidence of regulators in the compliance standards, transparency and resilience of tokenized assets offered in the UAE.”

Firms wishing to provide Tether Gold-related services must obtain the necessary regulatory approvals within ADGM, which serves as an international financial center in Abu Dhabi dedicated to fostering innovation in banking and digital assets.

Tether Gold (XAU₮) offers blockchain-based proof of ownership for physical gold stored as London Good Delivery bars, with each token representing one troy ounce. This structure bridges physical and digital finance, allowing investors to access gold holdings through blockchain networks.

Mini dictionary: Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a prominent international financial center in the UAE, is known for its progressive regulation supporting fintech and digital asset markets.

ADGM expands digital asset frameworkADGM, which previously recognized Tether’s USD₮ as an Accepted Fiat Referenced Token, continues to broaden its regulated product offerings by incorporating Tether Gold. The authority emphasized that these decisions align with its objective to create a trusted environment for digital and tokenized real-world assets.

The updated regulatory framework is designed to encourage licensed institutions to introduce new financial products while maintaining clear compliance standards. Tether highlighted that the ADGM’s approach deepens its support for real-world asset tokenization and digital adoption in the financial sector.

Industry data cited by Tether indicates that the distributed value of tokenized real-world assets surpassed $31 billion, a substantial increase from $6.6 billion recorded a year earlier. This surge points to growing institutional demand for blockchain-based versions of traditional investment products.

Asset TypeDistributed Asset Value, 2025Distributed Asset Value, 2024Tokenized real-world assets$31 billion$6.6 billionTether expects the latest approval will make it easier for regulated institutions in Abu Dhabi to access and offer tokenized gold to their clients.

The ADGM stated that expanding support for products like XAU₮ “advances its goal of fostering digital innovation under robust regulatory oversight.”

Tether strengthens UAE footholdThis recognition strengthens Tether’s growing presence in the UAE, a country that has prioritized digital asset adoption through regulated market development. The company confirmed that it values ongoing collaboration with regional regulators, licensed firms, and partners to expand its regulated product suite.

Unlike traditional forms of gold ownership, Tether Gold allows users to digitally transfer asset ownership across blockchain networks. Each token is physically backed by gold with its own serial number, purity, and weight, while holders may redeem tokens for physical gold in accordance with Tether’s operational policies.

Through the ADGM framework, licensed institutions gain another tool for offering regulated digital products tied to traditional commodities, furthering the UAE’s standing as an emerging hub for digital finance and real-world asset tokenization.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Tether Gold has gained commodity status in Abu Dhabi, as DefiLlama data shows XAUT’s locked value has climbed more than threefold to about $2.86 billion over the past year.

Summary

ADGM recognized Tether Gold as an Accepted Spot Commodity for approved regulated firms. XAUT’s locked value more than tripled over the past year to $2.86 billion. Tether is expanding across tokenized gold, US payroll payments and Latin American banking. Abu Dhabi Global Market has recognized XAUT as an Accepted Spot Commodity, allowing regulated firms in the international financial center to provide services involving the tokenized gold asset when they hold the required permissions.

Under the designation, eligible companies can add XAUT-related products to their regulated offerings inside ADGM. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino described the decision as a clearer route for approved firms seeking to support the asset, while ADGM linked the addition to an expanded selection of products available within the financial center.

The decision follows ADGM’s earlier recognition of Tether’s USDT as an Accepted Fiat Referenced Token. With both assets now accepted under separate regulatory categories, Tether can place its dollar stablecoin and gold-backed token within one of the Middle East’s largest international financial centers.

ADGM’s treatment of XAUT applies only to firms that secure the relevant regulatory approvals. The designation does not give every company operating in the financial center automatic permission to offer trading, custody or other XAUT services.

Tokenized gold demand has lifted XAUT’s locked value DefiLlama figures show that Tether Gold’s total value locked has risen from approximately $826 million to $2.86 billion within a year. Based on those figures, the increase amounts to about 246%, placing XAUT among the largest products in the tokenized commodity market.

RWA.xyz estimates that tokenized commodities hold about $4.46 billion in distributed value. The data platform places the full tokenized real-world asset market at roughly $34.73 billion, giving commodities a share of nearly 13%.

Against those figures, XAUT’s reported $2.86 billion in locked value represents a substantial portion of the commodity category tracked by RWA.xyz. Differences between TVL and distributed-value methods mean the two datasets are not directly interchangeable, but both indicate that gold-backed tokens account for a large share of commodity tokenization.

Use cases for XAUT are also moving beyond spot trading and custody. Bitcoin lending platform Ledn announced in June that it plans to accept the token as loan collateral later this year, which would let customers borrow against tokenized gold without selling their holdings.

Ledn’s planned integration would place XAUT inside a crypto-backed lending product, adding a borrowing function to an asset mainly used for gold exposure. The company has not yet disclosed detailed terms such as loan-to-value ratios, interest rates or the exact launch date.

For regulated firms in ADGM, the new status could make similar services possible when their licenses cover the relevant activity. ADGM’s announcement, however, did not identify which firms intend to add XAUT or set a timeline for the first regulated offerings.

Tether is extending its reach across payments and finance Beyond tokenized gold, Tether has continued investing in payment systems and financial platforms. Last week, crypto.news reported that the company led a $7 million Series A round for Pact Labs alongside Blockchange Ventures and Lasagna.

According to crypto.news, the financing will support Pact Labs’ payroll and payment infrastructure while helping businesses adopt USAT, Tether’s dollar-backed stablecoin designed for the US market. The partnership focuses on wage payments rather than crypto trading, targeting a US payroll sector that processes more than $11 trillion each year.

Another investment has extended Tether’s presence in Latin American finance. Bloomberg reported that the company contributed $20 million to a $197 million equity round for Argentine digital bank Ualá, adding the platform to Tether’s portfolio of stablecoin-related investments.

Ualá announced the round in March and identified Tether among the participants, though it did not disclose the issuer’s contribution at the time. Allianz X led the financing, while Bloomberg later reported the size of Tether’s individual investment.

These investments come as Tether faces questions over USDT’s future availability on US crypto platforms. CoinDesk reported that the first anniversary of the GENIUS Act has renewed attention on whether the foreign-issued stablecoin can meet the law’s requirements before its transition period ends.

President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act into law one year ago, introducing a three-year compliance window. CoinDesk reported that uncertainty remains over how some deadlines will apply to foreign issuers such as Tether.

Circle has taken steps to align its operations with the incoming US framework, according to the report, while Tether has not publicly explained how it plans to bring USDT into full compliance.

The ADGM recognition gives XAUT a defined regulatory route in Abu Dhabi while Tether develops separate products and investments across gold, payroll and digital banking. USDT’s position in the United States, however, will depend on how regulators implement the GENIUS Act and whether Tether satisfies the final requirements.

20 July 2026 – Tether, the largest company in the digital assets industry, announced today that Tether Gold (XAU₮) has been recognized as an Accepted Spot Commodity within ADGM, the international financial center of Abu Dhabi. The recognition allows firms in ADGM to offer XAU₮, subject to their own relevant regulatory permissions and approval to use Accepted Spot Commodities.

The approval follows continued close engagement with ADGM to demonstrate the resilience, transparency, and compliance-focused approach of Tether’s operations, and gives firms in ADGM a clearer path to offer services involving XAU₮ within a regulated framework. It also marks another step in Tether’s expanding presence in the UAE, where digital asset policy continues to move from experimentation toward practical, institution-ready use cases.

XAU₮ brings physical gold on chain in a simple, transferable form. Each full XAU₮ token represents one troy fine ounce of gold on a London Good Delivery bar, giving users and institutions a way to access the enduring value of gold with the speed, portability, and transparency of blockchain technology.

“The UAE continues to show real leadership in digital asset regulation, and Tether is proud to keep building alongside that progress,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “By bringing XAU₮ into its Spot Commodities framework, ADGM is creating new room for firms with the relevant regulatory permissions to work with a token backed by physical gold. This is an important step for tokenized real-world assets and for the growth of practical, regulated digital finance in the Middle East.”

“ADGM continues to advance a trusted, well-regulated environment that enables responsible innovation across digital assets and tokenised real-world assets,” said Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief Market Development Officer at ADGM. “The recognition of XAU₮ as an Accepted Spot Commodity further strengthens the breadth of products and services available to firms operating from ADGM, supporting the continued scaling of business activity within ADGM and Abu Dhabi’s growing financial ecosystem.”

The recognition of XAU₮ builds on the Financial Services Regulatory Authority’s previous recognition of USD₮ as an Accepted Fiat Referenced Token and expands the range of Tether products that authorized firms in ADGM can support. Additionally, it shows how direct engagement between regulators and digital asset companies can help bring real-world assets on chain in a way that supports compliance, transparency, and market integrity.

Demand for tokenized real-world assets continues to grow as institutions look for more efficient ways to access, move, and manage traditional assets. Tokenized real-world assets now represent more than $31 billion in distributed asset value, up from roughly $6.6 billion a year earlier. XAU₮ brings that model to gold, combining physical backing with the speed and portability of a digital token.

Tether will continue working with regulators, licensed firms, and partners in the UAE and across the region to support responsible digital asset adoption.

About Tether Gold (XAU₮) 

Tether Gold (Gold) is a digital asset offered by TG Commodities Limited. One full XAU₮ token represents one troy fine ounce of gold on a London Good Delivery bar. The token can be traded or moved easily at any time, anywhere in the world, and can be transferred to any on-chain address from the purchaser’s Tether wallet, where it is issued after purchase. The allocated gold is identifiable with a unique serial number, purity, and weight, and is redeemable in the form of physical gold. 

Important Note:

This press announcement is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy Tether Gold (XAU₮). TG Commodities S.A de C.V. will only sell or redeem XAU₮ pursuant to its gold token terms of sale and service available (as of the date of this press release) at https://gold.tether.to/legal 

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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Tether has faced renewed scrutiny over whether USDT can remain available on U.S. crypto platforms unless the stablecoin issuer meets the requirements of the GENIUS Act before its compliance window closes.

Summary

Tether could face restrictions on USDT in the United States if it does not meet GENIUS Act requirements before the 2028 compliance deadline. Legal experts say foreign stablecoin issuers still have time to comply, though some obligations may begin once the law takes effect. Tether has continued expanding USAT, enterprise payments and Latin American investments while U.S. stablecoin rules are still being finalized. According to a CoinDesk report, the first anniversary of the GENIUS Act has brought renewed attention to Tether’s regulatory path as the company remains the largest stablecoin issuer by market value while U.S. regulators continue working on rules needed to fully implement the law.

President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act into law one year ago. Although the legislation introduced a three-year transition period for compliance, questions remain over how some of its deadlines apply to foreign-issued stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT.

While U.S.-based Circle has moved to align itself with the incoming framework, Tether has not publicly detailed how it intends to bring USDT into full compliance. The report also noted that Tether did not respond to multiple requests for an updated position before publication.

Paolo Ardoino during a CNBC interview. Source: CNBC. Last July, Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the company intended to comply with the GENIUS Act. Speaking to CoinDesk after the bill was signed at the White House, Ardoino said, “Tether will comply with the GENIUS Act,” adding that the company planned to launch a separate U.S.-focused token while also ensuring USDT satisfied the law’s foreign issuer requirements.

Incredibly honored and grateful for the invitation to watch @POTUS sign the Genius Act today.

Tether has already brought over 160 billion USDT to over 500 million users worldwide.

Now that President Trump has led the United States to embrace digital assets, we believe we can… pic.twitter.com/94IEnd0FUi

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) July 18, 2025 Questions remain over compliance timeline Even with two years remaining before the law’s general transition period expires in July 2028, lawyers continue to debate whether foreign issuers receive the same grace period as domestic companies.

Justin Levine, a lawyer at Davis Polk who advises clients on stablecoin regulation, told CoinDesk that foreign issuers will need to comply immediately with provisions allowing authorities to freeze and seize assets linked to illicit activity once the law becomes effective, which is expected around January. However, he said additional requirements tied to continued U.S. exchange listings would likely have a longer implementation period.

“Upon the effectiveness of the GENIUS Act, foreign issuers will need to immediately comply with lawful orders to seize and freeze coins held by illicit actors, but they will have a runway of approximately two more years to prepare for the additional requirements so that their coins may remain eligible for listing on U.S. centralized trading platforms,” Levine said.

He added that one of those future obligations, registration with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, would likely require a “significant undertaking.”

“So they do have time, as long as they comply with seize and freeze orders,” Levine said.

“But those that want to have their coins continue to be traded on U.S. centralized platforms and have that liquidity should still be thinking about it right now, even if it’s not imminent that they’re going to get delisted.”

CoinDesk also reported that an earlier legal interpretation published by law firm Paul Hastings had suggested foreign issuers could face a different compliance timeline. After the publication sought clarification, the report said the interpretation was removed from the firm’s website, while representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Further guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has also left room for interpretation. CoinDesk said an OCC proposal includes a footnote indicating that 2028 remains the general compliance deadline but notes that certain requirements for foreign issuers begin once the law takes effect. These early obligations appear to center on cooperation with law enforcement requests involving asset freezes and seizures, while broader requirements would follow later.

Beyond these initial measures, foreign issuers are expected to satisfy additional conditions, including OCC registration, maintaining reserves at U.S. financial institutions, and operating under home-country supervision that the U.S. Treasury determines is comparable with the American regulatory framework.

Reserve structure draws attention CoinDesk also pointed to Tether’s latest reserve disclosures, saying approximately one-quarter of USDT’s backing remained invested in assets that would not qualify under the GENIUS Act’s reserve standards. According to the report, those assets include bitcoin holdings, precious metals, and lending exposure.

The legislation instead requires qualifying stablecoins to be backed by highly liquid assets such as cash and short-term U.S. Treasury securities.

Although regulatory questions continue, Tether has already introduced USAT, a U.S.-focused stablecoin issued through banking partner Anchorage Digital with American compliance standards in mind. Adoption of the token has remained relatively limited compared with USDT.

Kevin Wysocki, head of policy at Anchorage Digital, told CoinDesk the company expects institutional adoption to move ahead of the legal deadline.

“Non-compliant stablecoins cannot be used by U.S. institutions when the safe harbor expires in 2028, but we don’t expect the market to wait,” Wysocki said. He added that Anchorage expects institutions to migrate toward “compliant, bank-issued digital dollars well ahead of that deadline.”

Expansion continues as regulation develops Even as compliance discussions continue in the United States, Tether has expanded both its investment activity and enterprise payment strategy across several markets.

Earlier this month, the company led a $7 million funding round for Pact Labs to integrate USAT into payroll infrastructure serving a U.S. payroll market processing more than $11 trillion annually. Tether said the partnership is intended to allow employers to settle wages using blockchain payment rails instead of relying solely on conventional banking systems.

Outside payroll, Tether has also increased its focus on corporate treasury operations. Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai Motor Mexico recently completed a pilot cross-border treasury payment using USDT over the Avalanche blockchain, settling a $20,000 transfer in about seven minutes through infrastructure provided by Axiym, while Hyundai Card managed the compliance and operational framework for the transaction.

Latin America has remained another priority. Over recent weeks, Tether has invested $20 million in Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin and another $20 million in Argentine digital bank Ualá as part of its latest funding round. The company also previously led a $14 million investment in Argentine crypto platform Belo to expand crypto payment products and financial services across the region.

Meanwhile, Bolivia is evaluating a proposal that would recognize USDT alongside the boliviano and the U.S. dollar within parts of its payment system. Local reports have indicated that Banco Unión and Banco FIE already provide services connected to USDT, although authorities have yet to publish a final legal framework.

Despite those international expansion efforts, the regulatory picture inside the United States remains unfinished. Federal agencies have yet to finalize the implementing rules required under the GENIUS Act, leaving stablecoin issuers without a complete regulatory framework to follow even as the first compliance obligations approach.

Trevor Tanifum, managing principal at consulting firm FS Vector, was cited in the report saying that some trading platforms with lower risk tolerance could choose to delist non-compliant stablecoins early, while larger exchanges with stronger legal resources may continue supporting them until regulators provide definitive guidance.

“It’s pretty much what has happened, I think, at every major crypto hurdle,” Tanifum said. “These platforms still count on a lot of transaction volumes, liquidity from non-U.S. issuers, and so I can’t see them giving up those volumes without a fight.”

At the same time, much of the crypto industry’s policy focus has shifted toward the proposed CLARITY Act, which lawmakers continue to debate in Congress. If enacted, the legislation could revise parts of the GENIUS framework, adding another layer of uncertainty as Tether, Circle and other stablecoin issuers prepare for federal oversight in the months ahead.