Tether Revives USDT on Bitcoin with Morgan Stanley's Heavyweight Support

Tether is bringing its USDT stablecoin back to Bitcoin after meeting with Morgan Stanley in Washington. Utexo CEO Viktor Ihnatiuk says he met with the bank to discuss adoption of USDT on Bitcoin, as well as working together on infrastructure for Europe and globally.

According to Utexo, Morgan Stanley's interest is significant because it wants to see USDT return to its roots on Bitcoin. The stablecoin first launched on Omni Layer, a protocol built on top of Bitcoin, in 2014. However, most of the supply moved to Ethereum and Tron, with Tether ending support for the Omni version in 2023.

Utexo builds the infrastructure behind USDT on Bitcoin, allowing wallets, exchanges, and custodians to move the stablecoin over the Lightning Network. It relies on RGB, a protocol that issues assets on Bitcoin while keeping transaction data off-chain. Tether led Utexo's $7.5 million seed round alongside Big Brain Holdings and Portal Ventures.

Morgan Stanley has been pushing deeper into crypto this year, launching its own spot Bitcoin ETF in April and opening E*Trade crypto trading in May. However, USDT on Bitcoin is not yet live for most users, with Utexo naming UniSat as its next launch partner. The wallet serves over 1 million weekly active users.