Tether is taking its regulated digital dollar a step beyond Ethereum. On Tuesday the company announced that USAT — a dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital and aimed at U.S. users — is launching on Celo, a mobile-first, EVM-compatible blockchain. This marks USAT’s first deployment off the Ethereum mainnet after its initial January rollout on Ethereum.
Google Cloud will provide infrastructure support for the Celo launch, and Tether said it plans for USAT to become a native gas token on the network. To ease user access, the technical rollout includes a mainnet faucet that lets verified users claim USAT using a privacy-preserving proof-of-humanity mechanism developed with Self and Google Cloud. After the token goes live, Celo governance will begin the process to formally enable USAT as a gas currency.
The move is aimed squarely at mobile and emerging-market activity. Celo’s ecosystem includes Opera MiniPay, which counts some 14 million wallet users globally — a distribution channel Tether says can bring “trusted, programmable money” to people “in the environments where people are already transacting every day,” according to CEO Paolo Ardoino. Ardoino emphasized the scale of Tether’s footprint, noting that more than 566 million people rely on USDT to access and move dollars, particularly where traditional financial rails are limited.
Celo co-founder and CEO Rene Reinsberg called the listing “a powerful validation of the infrastructure we’ve spent years building,” and highlighted Opera MiniPay as a way to reach mobile-first users with a regulated on-chain dollar.
On transparency and reserves: Deloitte released the first USAT attestation report earlier this month, showing $17.6 million in reserves (cash and U.S. Treasuries) backing roughly $17.5 million in USAT tokens as of January 31. The announcement also comes amid renewed scrutiny of Tether’s broader auditing practices: Tether’s flagship USDT — the industry’s largest stablecoin, with a market cap of about $184 billion — has never had a full independent audit from a Big Four accounting firm. Last week Tether said it had engaged one of those firms for an audit but did not name which; the Financial Times subsequently reported that KPMG would conduct it.
Why it matters: expanding USAT to Celo signals Tether’s drive to place regulated USD-denominated stablecoins into high-usage, mobile-first environments where on-chain payments could replace or augment traditional rails. If Celo governance approves USAT as gas currency and adoption through channels like Opera MiniPay scales, the move could broaden real-world utility for regulated stablecoins — particularly in regions where mobile wallets are a primary access point to digital finance.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication for clarity.
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