Tether Plans to Launch U.S. Stablecoin by Early 2026

By: bitcoin ethereum news|2025/05/03 05:00:04

Tether’s initiative to issue a new U.S. stablecoin could be realized by early 2026, company CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an interview with CNBC . “American stablecoin will be different from international. It depends on the timing of the final legislation, but we expect to [launch] by the end of the year or early next year at best,” he said. Ardoino emphasized Tether’s commitment to working with regulators and law enforcement: “There is no other company, even in the traditional financial system, that has as much cooperation with law enforcement. We’re always trying to do better and more to block criminal activity. Our tools are much better than the traditional financial system, and we prove it every day. Experts at the Atlantic Council think tank noted that laws being drafted in the U.S. for stablecoins contain favorable provisions for Tether, in particular the ability to operate in the country if it cooperates with authorities. According to NYT , Ardoino has met with lawmakers on multiple occasions and may have influenced their perceptions of the necessary requirements. The head of Tether also commented on the recent partnership with Cantor Fitzgerald. Until recently, the head of the firm was Howard Lutnick, who took over as U.S. Secretary of Commerce. The post of Cantor chairman went to his son Brandon Lutnick. Ardoino said he does not communicate with Minister Lutnick – there are “appropriate barriers” to prevent conflicts of interest. “We have great relationships with many people in the United States and now in Washington,” the entrepreneur added. USDT ban in US ‘doesn’t bother’ Tether In case of non-compliance of USDT with stablecoin regulations in the US, Tether will issue a new asset specifically for the US market. Company CEO Paolo Ardoino told Decrypt. “We think [USDT] is ideal for emerging markets, but we can create a payment stablecoin that works in the U.S.,” he said. Two competing bills for “stablecoins” are pending in Congress – the STABLE Act and the GENIUS Act. Both involve special requirements for foreign issuers, including El Salvador-registered Tether. Ardoino said he is more interested in emerging markets, where USDT plays a significant role. U.S. legislation worries the entrepreneur to a lesser extent: “We don’t think there’s anything particularly problematic [in the stablcoin legislation].” Additionally, Ardoino believes USDT will continue to be traded on the secondary market – in its current form, the GENIUS legislative restrictions relate to the direct sale of the asset to U.S. citizens, STABLE prohibits trading for custodial intermediaries like Coinbase two years after enactment. Tether’s first quarter operating profit exceeds $1 billion At the end of January-March, Tether generated an operating profit of $1 billion from traditional investments. This estimate is contained in a commentary on the issuer’s attestation report stablecoin USDT. The result provided a boost to the value of US government bonds, while the positive revaluation of gold almost offset bitcoin’s volatility, the paper said. USDT supply increased by ~$7 billion to $143.68 billion, while the number of user wallets increased by 46 million. The amount of risk on US Treasuries approached $120 billion. The figure includes indirect holdings of securities through money market funds and reverse repurchase agreements. Direct investment in U.S. Treasuries reached $98.5 billion. Excess stablecoin reserves totaled $5.59 billion.The decline relative to the year-end 2024 valuation ($7.09 billion) was impacted by a $2.35 billion dividend payment. Tether recalled investing “over $2 billion” in “long-term initiatives” in renewable energy, AI, peer-to-peer communications and data infrastructure. The report was verified by the independent audit firm BDO. The latter confirmed the accuracy of USDT’s financials and reserves. January-March was Tether’s first financial period “under the supervision of a regulator in El Salvador,” where its new headquarters are located. Source: https://coinpaper.com/8849/tether-will-launch-a-stablecoin-for-the-u-s-in-early-2026

The X Chat will be available for download on the App Store this Friday. The media has already covered the feature list, including self-destructing messages, screenshot prevention, 481-person group chats, Grok integration, and registration without a phone number, positioning it as the "Western WeChat." However, there are three questions that have hardly been addressed in any reports.

There is a sentence on X's official help page that is still hanging there: "If malicious insiders or X itself cause encrypted conversations to be exposed through legal processes, both the sender and receiver will be completely unaware."

Question One: Is this encryption the same as Signal's encryption?

No. The difference lies in where the keys are stored.

In Signal's end-to-end encryption, the keys never leave your device. X, the court, or any external party does not hold your keys. Signal's servers have nothing to decrypt your messages; even if they were subpoenaed, they could only provide registration timestamps and last connection times, as evidenced by past subpoena records.

X Chat uses the Juicebox protocol. This solution divides the key into three parts, each stored on three servers operated by X. When recovering the key with a PIN code, the system retrieves these three shards from X's servers and recombines them. No matter how complex the PIN code is, X is the actual custodian of the key, not the user.

This is the technical background of the "help page sentence": because the key is on X's servers, X has the ability to respond to legal processes without the user's knowledge. Signal does not have this capability, not because of policy, but because it simply does not have the key.

The following illustration compares the security mechanisms of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X Chat along six dimensions. X Chat is the only one of the four where the platform holds the key and the only one without Forward Secrecy.

The significance of Forward Secrecy is that even if a key is compromised at a certain point in time, historical messages cannot be decrypted because each message has a unique key. Signal's Double Ratchet protocol automatically updates the key after each message, a mechanism lacking in X Chat.

After analyzing the X Chat architecture in June 2025, Johns Hopkins University cryptology professor Matthew Green commented, "If we judge XChat as an end-to-end encryption scheme, this seems like a pretty game-over type of vulnerability." He later added, "I would not trust this any more than I trust current unencrypted DMs."

From a September 2025 TechCrunch report to being live in April 2026, this architecture saw no changes.

In a February 9, 2026 tweet, Musk pledged to undergo rigorous security tests of X Chat before its launch on X Chat and to open source all the code.

As of the April 17 launch date, no independent third-party audit has been completed, there is no official code repository on GitHub, the App Store's privacy label reveals X Chat collects five or more categories of data including location, contact info, and search history, directly contradicting the marketing claim of "No Ads, No Trackers."

Issue 2: Does Grok know what you're messaging in private?

Not continuous monitoring, but a clear access point.

For every message on X Chat, users can long-press and select "Ask Grok." When this button is clicked, the message is delivered to Grok in plaintext, transitioning from encrypted to unencrypted at this stage.

This design is not a vulnerability but a feature. However, X Chat's privacy policy does not state whether this plaintext data will be used for Grok's model training or if Grok will store this conversation content. By actively clicking "Ask Grok," users are voluntarily removing the encryption protection of that message.

There is also a structural issue: How quickly will this button shift from an "optional feature" to a "default habit"? The higher the quality of Grok's replies, the more frequently users will rely on it, leading to an increase in the proportion of messages flowing out of encryption protection. The actual encryption strength of X Chat, in the long run, depends not only on the design of the Juicebox protocol but also on the frequency of user clicks on "Ask Grok."

Issue 3: Why is there no Android version?

X Chat's initial release only supports iOS, with the Android version simply stating "coming soon" without a timeline.

In the global smartphone market, Android holds about 73%, while iOS holds about 27% (IDC/Statista, 2025). Of WhatsApp's 3.14 billion monthly active users, 73% are on Android (according to Demand Sage). In India, WhatsApp covers 854 million users, with over 95% Android penetration. In Brazil, there are 148 million users, with 81% on Android, and in Indonesia, there are 112 million users, with 87% on Android.

WhatsApp's dominance in the global communication market is built on Android. Signal, with a monthly active user base of around 85 million, also relies mainly on privacy-conscious users in Android-dominant countries.

X Chat circumvented this battlefield, with two possible interpretations. One is technical debt; X Chat is built with Rust, and achieving cross-platform support is not easy, so prioritizing iOS may be an engineering constraint. The other is a strategic choice; with iOS holding a market share of nearly 55% in the U.S., X's core user base being in the U.S., prioritizing iOS means focusing on their core user base rather than engaging in direct competition with Android-dominated emerging markets and WhatsApp.

These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, leading to the same result: X Chat's debut saw it willingly forfeit 73% of the global smartphone user base.

Elon Musk's "Super App"

This matter has been described by some: X Chat, along with X Money and Grok, forms a trifecta creating a closed-loop data system parallel to the existing infrastructure, similar in concept to the WeChat ecosystem. This assessment is not new, but with X Chat's launch, it's worth revisiting the schematic.

X Chat generates communication metadata, including information on who is talking to whom, for how long, and how frequently. This data flows into X's identity system. Part of the message content goes through the Ask Grok feature and enters Grok's processing chain. Financial transactions are handled by X Money: external public testing was completed in March, opening to the public in April, enabling fiat peer-to-peer transfers via Visa Direct. A senior Fireblocks executive confirmed plans for cryptocurrency payments to go live by the end of the year, holding money transmitter licenses in over 40 U.S. states currently.

Every WeChat feature operates within China's regulatory framework. Musk's system operates within Western regulatory frameworks, but he also serves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This is not a WeChat replica; it is a reenactment of the same logic under different political conditions.

The difference is that WeChat has never explicitly claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted" on its main interface, whereas X Chat does. "End-to-end encryption" in user perception means that no one, not even the platform, can see your messages. X Chat's architectural design does not meet this user expectation, but it uses this term.

X Chat consolidates the three data lines of "who this person is, who they are talking to, and where their money comes from and goes to" in one company's hands.

The help page sentence has never been just technical instructions.

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Before using Musk's "Western WeChat" X Chat, you need to understand these three questions