ME News, October 2 (UTC+8): Tether’s USDT will return to the Bitcoin network this month via Utexo, an infrastructure project supported by Tether. With a market cap of nearly $19 billion, USDT is the world’s largest stablecoin. It was originally launched on the Bitcoin Omni protocol in 2014, and since then, Ethereum and Tron have become its main issuance networks. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X last week, “It’s home.” Utexo was founded in 2025, completed a $7.5 million funding round earlier this year led by Tether, and has obtained the commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin. Utexo uses the RGB protocol with client-side verification, keeping most transaction data outside the Bitcoin public ledger, while ownership is anchored to UTXOs. Unlike the account model of Ethereum and Tron, transaction details are stored entirely off-chain between the two parties, and the Bitcoin ledger is used only for cryptographic proof of ownership. Utexo provides three main use cases: private USDT transfers, direct exchange between native BTC and USDT, and lending backed by native Bitcoin—without cross-chain wrapping like WBTC. Since RGB assets are ultimately anchored to Bitcoin UTXOs, Utexo cannot freeze assets the way Tether can freeze Ethereum addresses. Instead, it maintains a blacklist of UTXOs associated with sanctioned or illicit activities and distributes it to institutions such as exchanges, preventing these UTXOs from being redeemed. (Source: ME)