Tether Launches USAT Stablecoin Natively on Celo

Tether launched the GENIUS Act–compliant USAT stablecoin natively on the Celo blockchain on July 29, 2026. The deployment enables on-chain minting and burning of USAT and supports payment of network fees in USAT via Celo’s CIP-64 fee-abstraction mechanism. Anchorage Digital Bank issues the token.

USAT is backed one-for-one with cash and liquid cash equivalents, including U.S. Treasury instruments. Tether positions USAT as its regulated offering for the U.S. payments market alongside its offshore USDT. USAT first went live on Ethereum in January 2026, and the Celo deployment was announced in March.

The launch runs through Tether’s USDT0 omnichain infrastructure. Celo already hosts native versions of USDT and Tether’s gold token XAUt0.

Native issuance on Celo allows addresses to mint and burn USAT directly on the chain rather than rely on wrapped or bridged tokens. Under CIP-64, approved ERC-20 tokens can function as gas currencies, so users can pay transaction fees in USAT without first holding the network’s CELO token. Celo reports stablecoins account for more than half of fee payments on the network.

Celo is a mobile-focused blockchain that maps wallet addresses to phone numbers and runs a lightweight client. Its MiniPay wallet has over 18 million users who are expected to receive USAT support.

Tether led a $7 million funding round for Pact Labs to develop USAT use cases including U.S. payroll payments. Anchorage Digital Bank is a federally chartered, crypto-native bank supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and serves as USAT’s issuer.

At late-July 2026 market levels, USAT’s market capitalization was near $185 million, compared with roughly $180 billion for USDT. Many Celo applications continue to use other stablecoins such as USDC or cUSD, and broad merchant and wallet integration for USAT is not yet in place.

Marek Olszewski, Celo co-founder and chief executive of Celo Core Co., described USA₮ as ‘a US dollar stablecoin designed to comply with federal regulations’ and added it would run on rails used daily for remittances, savings and commerce.