Tether Funds Own Chain War to Repatriate Fees Worth $2.9 Billion

Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT, has been funding two competing chains to mitigate its $2.9 billion annual network-fee bill.

The company's strategy is to repatriate fees by owning and designing the experience on its own rails, rather than relying on external blockchains like Ethereum and Tron.

Tether launched Plasma in September with a $373 million token sale, aiming for a general-purpose DeFi economy with native token XPL. In contrast, Stable was released in December as an enterprise-focused chain where USDT itself is the gas, promoting free transfers and payments-grade predictability.