Tether to launch USDT stablecoin on Polkadot and Kusama

Tether to launch USDT stablecoin on Polkadot and Kusama

Tether announced Tuesday that it would launch its USDT stablecoin on the Polkadot and Kusama networks.

The launch schedule isn’t determined yet as the formation of parachains is pending, said Tether.

Parachains are individual blockchains that run parallel within the Polkadot ecosystem (Polkadot and Kusama). They can interact with each other and also with external networks such as Ethereum using bridges. This flexibility helps address the problems of scalability, security, and interoperability of blockchains.

Tether will first launch on Kusama, Polkadot’s experimental cousin network. Kusama helps projects prepare for deployment on Polkadot. It is built using Substrate (a blockchain development kit) and has nearly the same codebase as Polkadot.

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino told The Block that Tether will “most likely launch on the Statemint parachain soon after Statemint becomes available.”

Statemint was introduced last month by Polkadot developer Parity Technologies. It would provide functionality for deploying assets such as stablecoins in the Polkadot and Kusama networks and help end-users with lower fees.

“We are expecting the launch of Statemint in the next few months,” Ardoino told The Block. “But the roadmap is not yet finalized, and so this is all still in the planning stages.”

“We also continue to look at Kusama,” said Ardoino. “Kusama would theoretically allow us to start experimenting with supporting Tether on parachains even before Statemint is officially live.”

Tether’s planned USDT launch on Kusama and Polkadot would make the stablecoin available on a total of ten networks. USDT is currently live on Ethereum, Solana, Algorand, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni, Tron, and Bitcoin Cash’s Standard Ledger Protocol.

Ethereum remains the popular network for USDT — the world’s largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of over $43 billion — according to data compiled by The Block.

Nearly $23 billion worth of USDT has been issued on Ethereum, followed by Tron, worth almost $20 billion. USDT hasn’t gotten much traction on the other networks yet.

Tether said it aims to have USDT as the first-ever stablecoin on Polkadot. “Polkadot, with its parachain structure, has the ability to grow significantly in the coming years. This growth will be driven by its high level of scalability,” said Ardoino.

Tether’s stablecoin set to land on Polkadot and Kusama

Polkadot and Kusama users will benefit from a direct integration with Tether’s USDT when common good parachains launch. As announced by Tether on Tuesday, the stablecoin will launch both on Polkadot and Kusama, its cousin network.

Tether (USDT) is the oldest stablecoin to reach significant adoption, and it has recently surpassed $40 billion in circulating supply. Though there have been concerns in the past for its reserve status, the company recently committed and followed through with periodic reserve audits.

The timing of Tether’s release on Polkadot depends on its roadmap and the activation of parachains, the “shards” within the Polkadot network. As Tether’s chief technology officer, Paolo Ardoino, told Cointelegraph:

“Tether will likely launch on the first parachain available, StateMint. We expect StateMint to be the first common goods parachain.”

Common good parachains are a recent proposal within the Polkadot network to provide a neutral ground for building critical features for the network as a whole. Most “normal” parachains are launched by external developers, and sometimes, they may overlap in function and become effective competitors.

Building on a common goods parachain means that the stablecoin maintains neutrality within the wider network, while making its token available in any other parachain thanks to Polkadot’s cross-shard communication framework.

Before deploying on Polkadot, Tether will launch on Kusama, which will itself launch parachains at least a few weeks before Polkadot. Kusama is a “canary network” of Polkadot, a middle ground between a testnet and an independent blockchain. Kusama is a fully functional network that carries economic value, though it is expected to lead the way in implementing new protocol upgrades.

Tether is one of the stablecoins with the widest reach across blockchains, as Polkadot and Kusama add to an already significant list of adopters. These include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tron (TRX), EOS, Solana (SOL) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Tether is also supporting a number of layer-two solutions such as zkRollups and Liquid Network. The decision to release Tether on Polkadot was apparently done with decentralized finance in mind, Ardoino added:

“Our integration with Polkadot serves to support the decentralized finance ecosystems that are growing across blockchains. There has been notable development in Web 3.0 technologies, and we look forward to helping them unlock the internet of value.”

Visa supports transaction settlement with USDC stablecoin – TechCrunch

Payment card network Visa has announced that transactions can be settled using USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Crypto.com is the first company to test the new capability with its own Visa-branded cards.

USDC is a stablecoin co-founded by Circle and Coinbase and by managed the Centre consortium. As the name suggests, USDC is a cryptocurrency that follows the value of USD. One USDC is always worth one USD — hence the name stablecoin.

In order to make sure that the value of USDC remains stable, USDC partners keep USD on bank accounts every time they issue new tokens. Those accounts are audited to make sure that there are as many USDC in circulation as there are USD in those accounts.

So why do stablecoins exist even though money is mostly digital these days? Like other crypto assets, stablecoins present some flexibility when it comes to sending, receiving and storing value. You don’t need a bank account and everything can be easily programmable. And you don’t need to support legacy systems, integrate with banks and pay transaction fees to other financial institutions.

While USDC originally started as a token on top of the Ethereum blockchain, USDC also supports two other blockchains — Algorand and Stellar. Visa has chosen to focus on the Ethereum variant of USDC for now.

The payment company already supports 160 currencies across the globe. That’s why you can seamlessly use your Visa card when you travel abroad. You’ll see a card transaction in your home currency on your card statement, but the merchant gets paid in their own local currency.

Thanks to a partnership with Anchorage, Visa is adding support for its first digital currency. Anchorage recently received a federal banking charter and is positioning itself as a digital asset bank. Visa was probably looking for a trustworthy partner for this program. As Anchorage got a thumbs-up from regulators, the partnership makes sense.

For Crypto.com, it means that it can send USDC directly to Visa. For instance, if a Crypto.com customer holds USDC in their wallet and makes a card transaction, Crypto.com doesn’t have to first convert USDC tokens to USD.

It can send USDC to Visa’s Ethereum wallet address at Anchorage to settle the transaction. The merchant then gets paid by Visa in their own currency. Visa says there will be more partners down the road in addition to Crypto.com.

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