Tether (USDT) — Onchain News & Whale Tracking

Tron, Tether and Chainalysis Form Joint Task Force to Combat AI-Driven Crypto Crime

Tron, Tether, and blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis have announced the establishment of a joint initiative called the Digital Crime Task Force, which will focus on combating illegal activities involving USDT on the Tron network. The task force aims to integrate on-chain intelligence and law enforcement resources, cut the time between threat identification and law enforcement action, accelerate the freezing of assets tied to crimes, and prevent criminals from transferring funds. Key targets include investment fraud, pig butchering scams, hacking, terrorist financing, and North Korean cyberattacks. Chainalysis noted that AI-driven fraud in 2025 is 4.5 times more profitable than traditional fraud, with impersonation scams surging by over 1400% year-over-year. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether has cumulatively frozen more than $7 billion in assets linked to illegal activities and collaborated with over 360 law enforcement agencies across 73 countries. The new initiative comes after the tripartite T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) formed by the three parties with TRM Labs in 2024 was disbanded.

Tether holds a total of $4.8 billion in shares across 13 US-listed public companies.

According to Protos, Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, holds stakes in 13 U.S. listed companies, giving it roughly $4.8 billion in investment exposure to U.S. equities. These investments span multiple sectors, including a controversial video streaming platform, gold mining royalties, satellite operations, and a company whose core strategy centers on holding Bitcoin. Tether’s top three U.S. stock holdings are Twenty One Capital ($1.367 billion), Rumble ($1.328 billion), and Adecoagro ($966 million), totaling around $3.66 billion, accounting for 76% of its total exposure. Additionally, it holds shares in Elemental Royalty, Bitdeer, Gold.com, Versamet Royalties, Metalla Royalty & Streaming, Gold Royalty, Satellogic, Stablecoin Development Corp, Aurelion, and Antalpha Platform.

Tether releases the 800-million-parameter edge-side model BotPsy, claiming its tool-calling performance outperforms models 2.5 times its scale.

Tether has launched the open-weight model QVAC BotPsy, an 800-million-parameter system built on Alibaba’s open-source Qwen 3.5 architecture, which converts user daily requests into local tool calls on personal devices. In internal tests, Tether said the model set a new benchmark for tool call performance among models with fewer than 1 billion parameters, and outperformed all tested models with up to 1.2 billion parameters. Across four key tests—BFCL v4, ACEBench, τ-bench, and ToolSandbox—its results roughly doubled those of the base model Qwen 3.5-0.8B-Think, and outperformed Qwen 3.5-2B-Think, which has 2.5 times more parameters. Specifically, it scored 46.1 points in BFCL’s multi-turn tool call test, nearly double the 23.8 points of the 2B model. Tether added that BotPsy reduces the need to send personal data like emails and calendars to centralized service providers, and can detect when no suitable tool is available to avoid generating false tool calls. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that users should decide for themselves what content the assistant can access and which external services it can connect to. The model’s weights have been published on Hugging Face.

Tether has frozen five Ethereum addresses involving approximately 24.35 million USDT.

Per MistTrack monitoring, Tether froze 5 Ethereum addresses approximately 8 hours ago. These addresses, which were active in 2021 and 2023, hold a total of around $24.35 million in USDT. MistTrack noted that one of the frozen addresses had interacted with addresses it labeled as "phishing" and "pig butchering" scams. The 5 addresses involved in the freeze are: 0x25660042d9019fa2114c6c86fc3fd45134671028, 0xa04b55eae185f7e17806faaa5154fe53b9937b75, 0xc01144d85302139f761cbd710314215d93d296bf, 0x5b0f739a26b002cf414cc855ec9a7ae4a918ea44, 0xb28593f308d3126ae75ba2abcca6356f6607aed0

Tether will contribute €28.8 million to participate in Juventus’ capital increase, and abstained on resolutions including financial statements.

According to Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport, Tether — which holds roughly 11.5% of Juventus’ shares — will take part in the Italian football club’s €250 million capital increase, contributing €28.8 million in line with its stake. At Tether’s November 3 general meeting, it voted in favor of the capital increase proposal tabled by major shareholder Exor. However, Tether abstained from all other resolutions at the ordinary general meeting, including approving financial statements that posted a €66 million loss, director appointments, and executive performance compensation plans. The compensation plan grants Juventus stock rewards to executives who meet financial, sporting, and share price targets over a three-year assessment period. In 2025, Tether objected to the procedural arrangements of a €98 million capital increase proposal, calling for protection of existing shareholders’ preemptive subscription rights and immediate clarity on the issuance price and share count to avoid dilution of its holdings. Though its proposal was rejected, Tether still invested €11.7 million to join the capital increase. Separately, Tether’s acquisition offer submitted to Exor in December 2025 was also turned down.

Tether Gold's gold reserves rose 59% this year, pushing XAUT's total reserve value to a record high of $3.44 billion.

Tether released data today showing that as of the end of Q3 2026, the physical gold reserves backing Tether Gold (XAU?) have risen to 827,418 ounces, equivalent to approximately 25.7 tons, a 59% increase from the 16.2 tons recorded at the end of 2025. Its total market capitalization reached $3.44 billion, hitting an all-time high. During the same period, XAUT’s circulating supply maintains a 1:1 peg to its physical gold reserves, with each token backed by one troy ounce of physical gold. Since the start of the year, user holdings have grown by 73%, adding a total of over 9 tons of gold exposure. The reserve gold is stored in Switzerland, meets London Good Delivery standards, and currently totals 2,057 gold bars. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that despite significant volatility in the gold market this year, holders have continued to accumulate XAUT, reflecting long-term market demand for gold. He also cited World Gold Council estimates, noting the digital gold market could unlock around $700 billion in potential demand.

Tether has purchased an additional 50,000 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 150,000 BTC.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced that the company has purchased an additional 50,000 BTC, bringing its cumulative total BTC holdings to 150,000. After this purchase, the firm’s total BTC position has risen to more than 200,000.

Tether Freezes Over 4.5 Million USDT Linked to Mercado Bitcoin Security Incident

According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino’s disclosure on X, Tether has frozen over 4.5 million USDT linked to the security incident. Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin issued a statement saying it has swiftly identified and contained a security incident affecting its systems.

Binance hackers' sell-off has created arbitrage opportunities, with Titan Builder’s 24-hour revenue once surpassing Tether’s.

According to DefiLlama data, Ethereum block builder Titan Builder’s revenue surged to $22.83 million over the past 24 hours, surpassing Tether’s $16.99 million. Titan Builder is a neutral block builder on Ethereum, tasked with integrating public transactions, private transaction bundles, and MEV opportunities submitted by searchers, and winning block construction rights through bidding. During the Binance hack, attackers dumped stolen assets en masse on Ethereum, triggering sharp price dislocations that generated massive arbitrage and MEV opportunities. Leveraging its advantages in searcher order flow and block construction algorithms, Titan Builder secured more high-value block construction rights, capturing significant MEV gains and driving its short-term revenue spike.

Tether releases Q3 financial report: net operating profit reaches $1.5 billion, and excess reserves nearly double to $7.95 billion

Tether released its third-quarter 2026 financial report, posting a net operating profit of $1.5 billion, roughly flat with the previous quarter. Cumulative net operating profit for the first three quarters reached $4.5 billion, with its main revenue sources remaining U.S. short-term Treasury bonds and reverse repurchase agreements. As of September 30, Tether’s excess reserves rose to approximately $7.95 billion, nearly doubling from $4.1 billion at the end of Q2, an increase of about $3.8 billion. Total reserve assets at the end of the quarter stood at around $191.5 billion, with direct and indirect holdings of U.S. short-term Treasury bonds totaling $132.4 billion, and most reserves allocated to highly liquid, short-dated instruments. Tether noted that the total issuance of USDT remained broadly stable at $184 billion in the first three quarters of 2026. CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the company’s reserve strategy aims to ensure liquidity to meet redemption demands during periods of market and financial system stress, while enhancing financial strength through excess reserves.

200 million USDT flows out of Binance's hot wallet once again, and Tether promptly freezes the funds.

According to market reports and on-chain data, Binance’s hot wallets have again outflowed 200 million USDT, which Tether promptly froze. Tether has previously frozen over $1.567 billion in USDT. Earlier today, total assets outflow from Binance-linked wallets reached approximately $5.643 billion, broken down by blockchain networks: Ethereum accounted for ~$3.528 billion, Bitcoin ~$1.449 billion, Tron ~$628 million, and Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base combined for ~$38 million. In response to the incident, Binance co-founder He Yi stated that Binance has noticed reports of potential security issues and is actively investigating. The security team is urgently reviewing all relevant information and will release updates via Binance’s official channels after verification. He Yi also reminded users to beware of scams, warning against trusting unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information, and emphasized user funds security (SAFU).

Tether has frozen over $1.567 billion in USDT, which is suspected to be linked to stolen assets from Binance.

Tether has frozen more than $1.567 billion worth of USDT, according to a Bloomberg Terminal report. The freeze is reportedly linked to stolen assets from Binance. Binance co-founder He Yi recently posted that the exchange has noticed reports of potential security issues and is actively investigating. The security team is urgently reviewing all relevant information, and will release updates via Binance’s official channels after verification. He Yi also reminded users to beware of scams, advising them not to trust unofficial links, messages or requests for account information, and emphasized user fund safety (SAFU).

Outflow of assets from Binance-related wallets has reached $5.643 billion, with Tether and Circle freezing $2.316 billion worth of stablecoins.

According to on-chain data, as of 21:22 UTC on October 29, the total outflow of assets linked to Binance-labeled wallets reached approximately $5.643 billion. Of this, around $3.528 billion was on the Ethereum network, $1.449 billion on Bitcoin, $628 million on Tron, and a combined $38 million across Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. Additionally, Tether and Circle—issuer of USDC—have frozen at least $2.316 billion in stablecoins, including roughly $1.493 billion in USDT and $823 million in USDC. The figures are sourced from on-chain analytics; the asset outflow amount is not equivalent to actual stolen funds, and the relevant incident remains to be further verified.

Tether has frozen 971 million USDT suspected to be linked to large abnormal outflows from Binance.

According to market sources, Tether has frozen 971 million USDT suspected to be linked to large abnormal outflows from Binance.

Tether partners with 11 institutions to launch the FASE Foundation, with plans to deliver humanitarian aid to 1 million people via stablecoins.

Tether announced on October 26 the launch of the Financial Access and System Empowerment Foundation (FASE), a non-profit multi-stakeholder organization registered in Switzerland. The foundation aims to combat digital asset fraud, support human trafficking survivors, and explore the use of stablecoins to deliver humanitarian aid. FASE’s founding members include 11 institutions: Anchorage Digital, Bitfury, Bybit, Chainalysis, Fasanara Capital, Kraken, Opera, Pave Bank, Prosper Global, Solana Foundation, and Tether. The foundation’s initial plans include: partnering with global youth platform Goodwall to provide digital education and fraud prevention tools to up to 10 million young people, with a focus on high-risk regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia; collaborating with Prosper Global to explore stablecoin-based humanitarian aid solutions, with an initial pilot expected to reach up to 1 million people; and working with relevant UN funds to support human trafficking survivors in Senegal, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Uganda. FASE’s work is structured around four pillars: financial security, financial inclusion and freedom, access to basic resources, and responsible AI and robotics. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the foundation will unite industry players and international organizations to expand existing community aid efforts, helping vulnerable groups gain access to financial protection and basic resources.

Tether's MDK secures support from 15 industry participants to advance mining infrastructure interoperability and AI automation.

Tether announced in a post that 15 industry participants, including mining farm operators, ASIC manufacturers, and mining pools, have committed to jointly build and maintain integrations with its Mining Development Kit (MDK). The MDK is an open-source framework designed to enhance interoperability across different mining infrastructures and support AI-driven automation. Each participating company will build and maintain MDK Worker adapters, converting the existing interfaces of their hardware, mining pools, or systems into a unified interface. Businesses do not need to replace existing technology or surrender control of their systems, and can choose which functions to offer via the open interface on their own. Once adapted, developers can build applications, monitoring systems, or AI agents for the MDK, eliminating the need to develop separate integrations for each device manufacturer and mining pool. Tether noted that this will lay the foundation for cross-vendor device monitoring, fault identification, performance optimization, and future autonomous operations, while reducing redundant development work and reliance on a single supplier.

US senators investigate Tether over payments of millions of dollars to a company owned by former White House crypto advisor Bo Hines

U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations top Democratic member Richard Blumenthal is probing multi-million dollar payments from Tether to Nxum Group, a consulting firm founded by former White House crypto advisor Bo Hines, and has sent letters to Tether and Nxum demanding disclosure of the relevant business arrangements. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Nxum received large consulting fees from Tether while Hines was still serving as a White House crypto policy advisor. Blumenthal argues Hines was directly involved in stablecoin policy development affecting Tether’s business at the time, and the payments may raise legal and ethical concerns. Hines currently heads Tether’s U.S. operations, and Tether has not yet responded to the investigation. (CoinDesk)

Tether announces investment in the peso to expand its Latin American USDT payment and fiat on/off ramp network.

Tether announced it led the pre-seed funding round for Bolivian fintech firm Peso, backing its expansion of stablecoin payment infrastructure across Latin America and driving adoption of USDT in everyday use cases including retail, e-commerce, food delivery, ride-hailing, and banking payments. Peso offers USDT accounts that combine savings, spending, investment, and cross-border transfers, and integrates USDT with Bolivia’s banking system via QR codes and the ACH payment network, enabling conversion between stablecoins and local fiat currency. Peso has also integrated USDT payments into digital services platform Yango, allowing users to pay for food delivery directly within the app using USDT. The round’s proceeds will be used to expand Peso’s local fiat on- and off-ramps in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, as well as to develop its merchant-facing POS payment network and virtual account infrastructure. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said: “Peso is building everyday consumption infrastructure, turning USDT from a savings tool into a payment channel for users’ daily needs.”

Cross-border payments startup Mural has closed a $15 million Series A funding round, led by Tether.

Cross-border payments startup Mural, founded in 2022 by former Palantir engineers Sinclair Toffa and Chris Fernandes, has announced the completion of a $15 million Series A funding round led by Tether, with participation from North Island Ventures. Following this financing, Mural’s total funding stands at $28 million, while its specific valuation remains undisclosed. Mural provides enterprises with a unified payment management platform that supports managing U.S. dollars, local currencies, and stablecoins in a single account, helping payroll providers, software companies, and fintech firms integrate banks, payment service providers, and cross-border settlement channels. The company plans to use the proceeds from this round to further develop its platform. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the investment also targets the financial service needs of AI agents. As AI agents gradually participate in financial activities, they require payment systems that operate 24/7 and cover global markets. According to an Alvarez & Marsal report, stablecoin payments totaled approximately $400 billion in the first eight months of 2026. Chainalysis data shows that between July 2025 and June 2026, stablecoin cross-border fund flows reached $220 billion, a nearly 78% year-on-year increase.

AI computing company Tenstorrent closes $1.5 billion Series E funding round, with participation from Tether Capital and other investors.

Beating AI News Flash: AI computing firm Tenstorrent has closed a $1.5 billion Series E funding round, with participation from Tether Capital and other investors, valuing the company at $6.2 billion. Led by chip architect Jim Keller, Tenstorrent develops high-performance AI processors, servers and software, aiming to provide more open AI computing infrastructure for developers and enterprises. The company plans to use the funds to scale production and deployment of its Galaxy server system, advance AI and CPU technology R&D, and expand global commercial operations. Its technology already serves clients including Samsung and LG, with applications spanning large language models, video generation and other fields. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that AI should not rely on a small number of tech companies for computing power, noting that open computing infrastructure will help expand AI accessibility. This investment also continues Tether’s footprint in the AI sector; its open-source AI platform QVAC is dedicated to enabling AI to run directly on user devices, reducing reliance on centralized cloud services.

Tether CEO responds to Iran-related sanctions concerns: Relevant freezes were implemented 4 weeks ahead of official sanctions, while Iran-linked stablecoin trading volume has fallen by 94%.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has published a response to US Senator Blumenthal’s analysis of the stablecoin issuer’s sanctions compliance, stating that since 2023, Tether has frozen relevant addresses an average of four weeks ahead of official sanctions from OFAC and NBCTF. In 99% of related cases, these freezes also predate Chainalysis’ labeling of the addresses in question. Ardoino added that Tether’s actions have reduced Iran-related stablecoin trading volume by 94%, and its cooperation with law enforcement enables it to respond rapidly to emerging threats. The response follows Blumenthal’s release of a Democratic staff report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on September 28. The report claimed that among 846 wallets analyzed that were sanctioned or designated as seizure targets for ties to Iran and its regional proxy groups, 84% used only or nearly only USDT for transactions. It accused Tether of failing to adequately freeze illegal wallets, prompting Blumenthal to call on the US Treasury Department and Department of Justice to investigate the firm’s anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance practices. In a separate statement issued the same day, Tether noted that since the start of 2026 alone, it has helped freeze approximately $550 million in Iran-related USDT, with the relevant wallets identified by US authorities as linked to the Central Bank of Iran and sanctions evasion networks.

Tether invests in AI computing company Tenstorrent’s $1.5 billion Series E funding round.

According to Reuters, AI computing firm Tenstorrent has closed a $1.5 billion Series E funding round, with a post-money valuation of $6.2 billion. The round was led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, with participation from both new and existing investors including Agostinelli Group, ARK Invest, Brett Barna, Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Maverick Silicon, Morgan Stanley, Protagonist, Sandisk, T. Rowe Price, Tether Investments, Troluce Capital, Virtu Financial, and XTX Markets. Tenstorrent will use the funds to scale deployment of its Galaxy servers, continue supporting open-weight models in large language models (LLMs) and video generation, and advance its AI and CPU IP business—licensing its proprietary chip designs to clients.

Tether Makes Strategic Investment in AIsa to Expand AI Agent Services and Payment Business

Tether’s independent investment arm Tether Capital has announced a strategic investment in AI agent service and payment platform AIsa, expanding its footprint in AI-driven payments and programmable currency sectors. The announcement did not disclose the investment amount. AIsa integrates service access and payment into a single platform, allowing developers to use a unified interface to enable AI agents to call AI models, data, APIs, software tools and computing resources. The platform supports pay-as-you-go billing via fiat or stablecoins, and enterprises can set spending caps, eliminating the need to manage separate subscriptions or contracts for each service provider. AIsa stated that over 250,000 agents are currently operating on its platform, with more than 100 million transactions processed to date, and it provides access to over 5,000 APIs, skills and models via a single access key. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented: “As AI agents take on more work, users need to retain control over spending while authorizing them to access services, and AIsa is building the relevant infrastructure.”

Tether has previously paid over $6 million to a company linked to a former White House crypto advisor, with the transactions sparking questions about conflicts of interest.

According to an investigative report by The Wall Street Journal, during the period when former White House crypto advisor Bo Hines was pushing the GENIUS Act, Nxum, a consulting firm he co-founded and held shares in, established business ties with Tether. Citing internal documents, communications, and payment receipts, the report states that Tether paid over $6 million to Nxum, which was distributed among three partners. Although Hines stepped away from daily operations, he still discussed the bill with partners via Signal during his tenure. After the bill was signed into law in July 2025, he left his position in August and was appointed CEO of Tether’s U.S. stablecoin business in September, with the relevant connections raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.

Tether AI Research has unveiled its on-device speech recognition model TranscribePsy, designed for smart glasses and humanoid robots.

Tether AI Research has released an open-source multilingual automatic speech recognition (ASR) model named QVAC TranscribePsy, which has around 254 million parameters and can run fully on-device—no audio upload to the cloud required. The company noted the model can process audio from smart glasses connected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in near real time, and also operate on onboard processors of humanoid robots. On the Core ML version for iPhone 17 Pro Max, transcribing 10 minutes of audio takes roughly 1.65 seconds. According to its published benchmark data, TranscribePsy achieves a word error rate (WER) of 8.02% on the Open ASR Leaderboard, 6.58% on Multilingual LibriSpeech, and 21.56% on Common Voice. Among six tested smartphones, it is the fastest in speed, approximately 2.6 times faster than the second-fastest model. The model supports 25 European languages for laptops and 8 European languages for mobile phones, with model weights and builds in formats including GGUF and Core ML released under the Apache 2.0 license. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that he hopes advanced speech AI can run locally on users’ own devices, ensuring data does not leave the device.

Tether announces participation in the seed round of Latin American stablecoin payment infrastructure provider EFY Finance.

Tether announced its participation in EFY Finance’s seed round financing to drive the institutional adoption of USDT and USAT. The investment aims to strengthen infrastructure links between stablecoins and traditional financial systems in Latin America. EFY Finance is a financial infrastructure firm offering stablecoin-based cross-border payments, account services, and digital asset custody for the Latin American market. The company provides fiat onramps infrastructure for USDT and USAT, over-the-counter (OTC) trading services, wallets, and debit cards, supporting over 12 currencies and cross-border payment channels, with settlement capabilities for local accounts in 17 countries. EFY Finance has secured El Salvador’s Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) license and currently delivers regulated services to more than 25,000 active individual and corporate accounts.

Losses from Ledger security incident approach $90 million, Tether is freezing large amounts of USDT in the involved addresses.

Blockchain security tracking platform MistTrack announced in a post that Tether is freezing large volumes of USDT from multiple addresses linked to the incident. The total relevant losses tracked by MistTrack have reached nearly $90 million. According to MistTrack, some affected users have contacted the team for assistance, and the team is following up on the case. As of now, MistTrack has not disclosed the specific cause of the incident, affected protocols, or the attacker’s identity in the post.

Senior Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate are investigating the relationship between Tether and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.

Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, is demanding Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald explain its relationship with Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer. If Democrats make further gains in the November elections, Blumenthal and his colleagues could soon gain expanded investigative authority. On Thursday, Blumenthal sent a letter to Cantor CEO Brandon Lutnick, son of Howard Lutnick, who served as U.S. President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary and handed over management of the firm to his son after joining the administration. Blumenthal has been investigating Tether’s role in Iran’s financial system, and noted that Tether, the issuer of USDT, has a lucrative business relationship with Cantor Fitzgerald, which manages its U.S. reserve assets. In the letter, Blumenthal wrote: “Just as Tether has reaped incalculable interest income and investment gains from stablecoins used in these illegal activities, Cantor Fitzgerald has also profited from its partnership with Tether.” He also asked Brandon Lutnick to explain the firm’s banking operations and sanctions compliance safeguards, and inquired about his father’s prior dealings with Tether during his tenure at Cantor.

Cross-border payment company Conduit sues Tether, demanding the unfreezing of $2.76 million in USDT and filing a claim for damages.

Cross-border payments firm Conduit has sued Tether in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Tether has frozen $2.76 million worth of USDT for over a year without providing a valid explanation or releasing the funds. Conduit is demanding Tether unfreeze the relevant funds and is seeking additional damages of at least $2.76 million. Conduit states that the frozen wallet serves as its "operating bank account", and the freeze stems from an investigation by Brazilian police targeting its former client Onix Intermedia??es. However, Conduit says law enforcement authorities have never requested the freezing of its funds, and a Brazilian court has confirmed Conduit is not under investigation in connection with the case. Conduit further claims Onix has not used its platform since April 2025, the wallet in question was created about a month later and never held Onix’s funds. The company notes the frozen funds have impacted its business operations, while Tether continues to earn revenue from the reserve assets corresponding to the frozen USDT.

Tether-backed Utexo project plans to launch USDT on the Bitcoin network this month.

Utexo, backed by Tether, plans to launch USDT on the Bitcoin network this month. Utexo co-founder Viktor Ihnatiuk stated that the company has secured a commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin, and intends to provide APIs, SDKs, and cloud infrastructure for exchanges, wallets, and payment service providers. Built on the RGB protocol and Bitcoin’s UTXO model, Utexo will keep most transaction data off-chain, focusing on three core use cases: USDT private transfers, direct swaps between native BTC and USDT, and native BTC collateralized lending—eliminating the need to wrap BTC for use on other blockchains. USDT was first issued on Bitcoin via the Omni protocol in 2014, before Ethereum and Tron emerged as its primary circulating networks. Utexo also plans to expand support to the Lightning Network following USDT’s Bitcoin launch. (CoinDesk)

Tether mints $494 million worth of gold token XAUT

According to Arkham's monitoring, Tether minted $494,574,412 worth of gold token XAUT 18 hours ago.

Tether labeled as 'financial lifeline' for the Iranian regime by US Senate Democrats

Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence (under the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) released a report on September 28, accusing Tether’s stablecoin USDT of becoming a key funding channel for Iran’s shadow banking network, helping the Iranian government evade international sanctions. The report estimated that Iran processed roughly $20 billion in transactions via the relevant network last year, though it did not specify the exact amount involving USDT. It also alleged that Tether failed to freeze Iran-linked wallets in a timely manner—some freezing actions took weeks—and did not proactively block wallets suspected of illegal activity. The report noted that USDT has become an important financial lifeline for Iran’s shadow banking network. In response, Tether said the same day it had assisted in freezing nearly $550 million in Iran-related USDT, adding that it has maintained direct cooperation with law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and other countries to help identify and freeze illegal funds.

Tether has assisted in freezing approximately $550 million worth of USDT linked to Iranian sanction-related networks this year.

Tether said that since 2026, the company has assisted U.S. and international law enforcement agencies in freezing approximately $550 million worth of USDT linked to Iran’s central bank and Iranian sanction networks. In April this year, Tether froze over $344 million worth of USDT in two addresses based on information from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and U.S. law enforcement; in July, as the U.S. Treasury expanded sanctions against Iran’s central bank, the company froze an additional $130 million worth of USDT in four TRON addresses, bringing the total of the two actions to roughly $550 million. To date, Tether has collaborated with more than 340 law enforcement agencies across 67 countries and regions, supporting over 2,900 investigations—more than 1,600 of which involve U.S. law enforcement. The company has cumulatively frozen over $4.9 billion in assets, with more than $2.4 billion linked to U.S. law enforcement. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino noted that public blockchains allow law enforcement to trace fund flows, adding that Tether can implement freezing measures upon receiving credible information from law enforcement and will continue to assist in combating sanction evasion, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.

OKX's Flash Earn Lite adds Tether USDT; subscribe to ETH to share the 400,000 USDT reward pool.

Official announcement: OKX Flash Earn Lite will launch a Tether USDT "Stake-to-Earn" campaign from 15:00 UTC+8 on September 29, 2026 to 15:00 UTC+8 on October 4, 2026. During the event, users who subscribe ETH will be eligible to split a total of 400,000 USDT in airdrop rewards, with a minimum subscription threshold of 0.01 ETH. Pre-subscriptions will open at 15:00 UTC+8 on September 28. Users will earn simple interest during the pre-subscription period, while USDT airdrop rewards will be calculated from the official start of the event. Rewards are accrued hourly, and users can redeem their funds at any time; any ETH not actively redeemed after the event concludes will automatically continue to be subscribed to OKX's simple earning products.

Tether: Exposure to EQIBank, whose assets were seized by the U.S., accounts for less than 0.034% of its total assets.

Tether said its asset exposure to EQIBank, a licensed bank in Dominica, is less than 0.034% of the group’s total assets. EQIBank recently faces liquidation risk after its U.S. payment processor Capstone had roughly $89 million in assets seized by U.S. authorities. Based on Tether’s $187.75 billion group total assets disclosed in June this year, its maximum exposure to EQIBank is approximately $64 million. Tether stated it had no prior knowledge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s allegations against Capstone. EQIBank previously provided banking services to Tether, including handling wire transfers related to USDT purchases and redemptions. U.S. prosecutors accused Capstone of submitting false business information to banks and initiated civil forfeiture proceedings against its accounts at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. EQIBank said the seized roughly $89 million in assets account for about 80% of its monetary assets. Tether noted that this exposure scale does not pose a direct threat to USDT reserves or its U.S. dollar peg, but the incident once again highlights the counterparty risks stablecoin issuers face when relying on banks and payment institutions to process fund flows.

Tether followed suit to freeze $218,000 in USDT from Bitget's stolen address, 7 hours after Circle.

According to on-chain data, Tether has successfully frozen $218,000 worth of USDT from an address linked to the Bitget hack. This address is a "three-hop" associated address of Bitget’s initial stolen wallet, and remained inactive for over 2.5 hours after being detected, with no transfers occurring during that window. Crypto KOL tanuki42 launched a "Circle vs Tether" tracking effort at the time, asking which of the two firms would freeze the related assets first. Currently, Circle froze the relevant stolen assets 7 hours and 18 minutes ahead of Tether.

Circle freezes $100,000 worth of USDC from the stolen Bitget address, and the community is calling on Tether to follow suit.

SomaXBT, a contributor to crypto non-profit Security Alliance, stated in a post that Circle has frozen 100,000 USDC from an address linked to stolen Bitget funds, which also holds around 218,000 USDT. The community has since called on Tether to follow up on the freeze procedures. Per prior disclosures, this address is a "three-hop" linked address to Bitget’s initial stolen funds address, and remained untouched for over 2.5 hours after being detected. Crypto KOL tanuki42 launched a "Circle vs Tether" tracking initiative at the time, asking which of the two firms would freeze the relevant assets first. So far, Circle has taken the lead in freezing the USDC in the address, while it remains to be seen whether Tether will freeze the remaining ~218,000 USDT.

Tether releases its 191.4 billion-token STEM dataset, betting on the explainability of local small models.

Stablecoin giant Tether’s Tether AI Research today launched QVAC Genesis III, a synthetic training dataset for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, boasting 191.43 billion tokens and covering 159.6 million documents. Tether aims to leverage the dataset to enhance the reasoning and teaching capabilities of small AI models, enabling more AI assistants to run directly on laptops, mobile devices and local servers, thus reducing ongoing reliance on large cloud-based models. Genesis III continues the data trajectory of Genesis I and II, spanning 19 curricula-related domains including biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, medicine, electrical engineering and machine learning, with applications targeting high school, university and professional use cases. Tether states the dataset prioritizes training models to explain problem-solving processes, spot flawed reasoning and offer corrections, rather than merely outputting final answers. According to Tether’s disclosed test results, a 1.7-billion-parameter model trained on Genesis III’s option-level data posted a 99.45% valid response rate in relevant benchmarks. Compared with models trained on similarly-sized Cosmopedia-v2, Genesis III delivered score improvements of 28.57, 21.35 and 15.03 percentage points on the ARC-Easy, ARC-Challenge and MMLU STEM benchmarks respectively.

ARK Invest: The stablecoin market is exhibiting a highly concentrated trend, with only Tether and Circle remaining among stablecoins with a market cap of over $10 billion.

ARK Invest Research Director Lorenzo Valente published a post stating that stablecoins have clear network effects. Though thousands of stablecoins exist in the market, the number of projects capable of reaching corresponding scales drops rapidly as the market capitalization threshold rises. Valente pointed out that the count of stablecoins with a market cap exceeding $1 billion has only grown from single digits since 2021 to 12 currently, marking very limited growth. The number of stablecoins with a market cap over $10 billion hit a peak of 4 in 2022, but now only Tether and Circle’s stablecoins remain. Valente believes that breaking into the $10 billion market cap tier is already extremely difficult, and the stablecoin segment above $100 billion may remain dominated by Tether and Circle for the long term. He added that only one stablecoin is likely to reach a market cap exceeding $500 billion in the next two years or more.

Tether and Fasanara launch a $400 million private credit fund, targeting to attract $3 billion in institutional capital.

Tether and Fasanara Capital have announced the launch of StableFund, an evergreen private credit facility. The two parties will jointly contribute $400 million as initial capital, and plan to attract up to $3 billion in third-party institutional capital to expand stablecoin-backed real economy loans. Fasanara will serve as investment manager, deploying funds into short-term, asset-backed credit strategies through its global fintech lending network. Tether, as co-sponsor, loan opportunity originator and advisor, will be responsible for sourcing USDT-related financing opportunities, and providing stablecoin settlement, on/off ramps and fund management infrastructure. The fund plans to integrate USDT into fintech platforms across more than 60 countries to provide financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consumers. Tether stated that the structure is designed to enhance the efficiency of cross-border credit capital flow; the global SME financing gap is currently estimated at $5.7 trillion.

Tether freezes approximately $39.3 million worth of USDT, involving addresses linked to Xinbi Guarantee.

Tether froze approximately $39.3 million in USDT across 10 addresses on the Tron network earlier today, with the addresses linked to Xinbi Guarantee. Sources reveal that Xinbi Guarantee is an escrow trading market that emerged on Telegram around 2022. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs has previously identified it as one of the largest illegal cryptocurrency markets in Southeast Asia, stating the platform has handled roughly $24.2 billion in total transactions. On-chain tracking platform MistTrack was the first to break the news of the related USDT freeze. This move marks Tether’s further step in on-chain asset freezing measures, targeting addresses deemed connected to high-risk or suspected illegal activities.

Tether is developing a decentralized P2P search engine, and the entire Wikipedia can be stored on just 100 nodes.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced in a post that Tether’s P2P team is developing a peer-to-peer (P2P) search engine, scalable to thousands of nodes, and featuring high availability and censorship resistance via a self-organizing fault-tolerant data structure. He disclosed that the team’s test environment has successfully distributed the full Wikipedia archive across 100 nodes, with search functionality fully supported and outstanding overall performance.

Tether-backed Orionx announces permanent shutdown; audit uncovers a shortfall of over $7 million in custodial assets.

Chilean crypto exchange Orionx, backed by Tether, announced it is initiating permanent closure procedures. A forensic audit previously uncovered that over $7 million in customer custodial assets were transferred to wallets not managed by the platform. Withdrawals are currently suspended, and the company stated its sole priority is to return customer assets as much as possible. The audit revealed that Orionx’s system-recorded balances of BTC, ETH, XRP, and POL exceeded the actual holdings in its custodial addresses. The firm has filed criminal complaints against two co-founders and former executives, Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, alleging the relevant assets were transferred between 2018 and 2021. The two denied the allegations, claiming they never harmed customer interests, and the cause of the asset shortfall remains unclear. Tether exclusively led Orionx’s Series A funding round in June 2025, approximately 15 months prior to the closure announcement. As of press time, Tether and Orionx had not responded to requests for comment.

Tether leads $3 million seed round for Colombian fintech startup Plenti

Colombian fintech Plenti has secured $3 million in seed funding led by Tether, with Verda Ventures participating. Tether will hold a minority stake in Plenti. The capital will be used to strengthen Plenti’s operations in Colombia and expand into Peru and Bolivia. Plenti provides services including cross-border transfers, multi-currency accounts, and investments in stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. It currently has over 150,000 active users, with annual transaction volume exceeding $3.1 billion across its B2B and B2C businesses.

Tether open-sources an AI translation model covering 19 African languages and 9 European languages.

Tether AI Research has announced the launch of multiple open-source AI translation models, which can run directly on smartphones, laptops, and other edge devices, supporting offline translation without requiring users to upload data to third-party clouds. Among them, TranslatePsy-AfriSLM supports 19 African languages, AfriNano supports 8, and EuroNano covers 9 European languages; the language group covered by the former accounts for roughly half of Africa’s total population. Tether has also introduced a new quality evaluation filtering method capable of removing up to 96% of low-quality open-source training data. The related models are now available for download on Hugging Face, and the research findings have been accepted by the EMNLP 2026 conference.

Tether sued by two Thai businessmen over freezing $42.4 million in USDT

Tether is facing a lawsuit over the freezing of $42.4 million worth of USDT. Two Thai businessmen claim their wallets were blacklisted following an informal request from a US government official, with no search warrant or court order issued at the time. The pair are now demanding the unfreezing of their assets, as well as compensation from Tether for the returns generated by the relevant reserve assets during the period their USDT was frozen.

Tether CEO: Approximately 650 million people indirectly hold U.S. Treasury bonds, and stablecoins have enabled U.S. Treasuries to achieve "decentralized holding" for the first time.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether is advancing the "decentralized holding" of US Treasuries via stablecoin technology, enhancing the security of the US debt holding structure. Ardoino noted that if hostile nations hold hundreds of billions of dollars in US Treasuries in a concentrated manner, a single decision-maker could offload large volumes in a short period, creating risks to the US financial system. By contrast, the number of Treasury holders backing Tether’s stablecoins is massive: roughly 650 million people currently hold related US Treasury assets indirectly. Since investors will not make sell decisions simultaneously, this mitigates the risk of concentrated sell-offs. Ardoino added that traditional finance, despite decades of so-called "financial innovation", has failed to resolve this issue, while stablecoin technology has for the first time enabled more widespread, decentralized holding of US Treasuries.

Tether’s CEO refutes the claim that “stablecoins cannot support large-scale payments”: Stablecoins are 100% reserve-backed, while banks operate on fractional reserves that are merely based on hollow promises.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has responded in a post to remarks from Bank for International Settlements (BIS) General Manager, who claimed stablecoins are inadequate for large-scale payments and instead backed tokenized bank deposits. Ardoino drew a structural comparison between the two: stablecoins are backed by 100% liquid assets such as government bonds, while tokenized bank deposits are essentially unenforceable pledges—typically not fully insured, with liquid asset reserves often standing at just around 10% (a fractional reserve). The BIS’s real concern is not whether stablecoins can facilitate payments, but that they expose the "emperor’s new clothes" of the traditional banking system. Ardoino then raised two questions: if stablecoins are fully reserved, why should savings be placed in fractional reserve products? What would become of the financial system if people realize stablecoins are safer and move their savings there? Ardoino directly took aim at the fractional reserve model of the traditional banking system.

Tether’s Bitcoin mining project in Uruguay has stalled due to a power contract dispute, with an estimated investment of up to $120 million.

According to Reuters, Tether’s bitcoin mining farm project in Uruguay has been shut down due to a power supply contract dispute with local state-owned power company UTE. The project’s investment is estimated at around $120 million. The two sides hold differing views on the contracted power supply volume: Tether regards the figure as a minimum guaranteed supply, while UTE considers it a cap on power delivery. As no new agreement was signed and power fees fell into arrears, UTE cut power to the two mining sites on July 25, 2025. Tether subsequently ended its local operations and laid off most of its staff. The Uruguay project was once seen by Tether as the "first step" in its push into the South American bitcoin mining market. However, Tether continues to expand its regional energy and mining footprint; it previously acquired a 70% stake in renewable energy firm Adecoagro and plans to use its surplus power for bitcoin mining.

Binance transferred 500 million USDT to Tether Treasury.

According to monitoring by TradingBeats (formerly Hyperinsight), Binance transferred 500 million USDT to the Tether Treasury six minutes ago.