Utexo has outlined an October launch for USDT on Bitcoin, with three planned services covering private transfers, direct BTC swaps, and Bitcoin-backed loans.
Summary
- October is the planned mainnet launch window, with Lightning Network support planned for a later stage.
- Utexo says borrowers will be able to use native Bitcoin as collateral without wrapping their holdings.
- The proposed privacy model includes a blacklist for transaction outputs linked to sanctioned or illegal activity.
- Tether co-led Utexo’s $7.5 million funding round announced in March alongside two other investment firms.
Utexo has secured a commercial license to issue USDT on Bitcoin and use its trademark for distribution to exchanges, wallets and payment providers, according to co-founder Viktor Ihnatiuk. The Tether-backed company plans to begin issuance in October.
Under the proposed rollout, Utexo will provide the software connections, developer tools and cloud services that other businesses need to offer Bitcoin-based USDT products. According to the company’s plans, the first deployment will use Bitcoin mainnet before support extends to Lightning, Bitcoin’s payment network.
USDT transfers would keep payment details off the public ledger
Through RGB, Utexo plans to support stablecoin transfers in which participants check transaction information themselves, while ownership is tied to Bitcoin’s unspent transaction outputs. According to the project’s description, most payment information would remain outside Bitcoin’s public transaction record.
For users, the intended services cover sending USDT privately, exchanging native BTC directly for USDT, and borrowing against native Bitcoin. Utexo says the swap service would avoid routing the trade through an exchange, while its lending design would let borrowers retain Bitcoin on its existing network.
By accepting native BTC as collateral, the company’s proposed lending service would remove the need to first convert those holdings into a wrapped token on another blockchain. Utexo describes private payments, swaps and lending as separate uses for the same Bitcoin-based infrastructure.
According to the report, more than 450 businesses, including exchanges and wallet providers, have expressed interest in Utexo. The report also describes discussions involving larger financial institutions, while stating that the company has not confirmed partnerships.
Utexo’s privacy design includes restrictions on flagged outputs
Within the proposed system, Utexo intends to maintain a list of transaction outputs associated with sanctioned or illegal activity and share it with exchanges and other service providers, according to Ihnatiuk.
His explanation distinguishes the proposed blacklist from freezing an address on Ethereum. Because RGB assets are tied to Bitcoin transaction outputs, he said, Utexo cannot freeze them through the same mechanism Tether uses for its Ethereum token.
Instead, the proposed restrictions would operate through services that accept, redeem, or move those assets. As described by the co-founder, a flagged output would become unusable for redemption through a bridge or minting service, or for withdrawal onto Ethereum or Tron.
According to the supplied report, the output-based approach would target the affected holdings rather than block every holding associated with an address. Utexo’s stated model combines confidential transaction information with restrictions applied to identified outputs.
Tether’s Bitcoin plans already have funding and RGB development behind them
Before the October rollout plans, crypto.news covered Tether’s Utexo funding round on March 6. The company announced $7.5 million in seed financing co-led by Tether, Big Brain Holdings and Portal Ventures.
In its funding announcement, Utexo named Franklin Templeton, Maven11 Capital, Fulgur Ventures, Auros Ventures and Flow Traders among the participants. The company identified payment providers, exchanges, wallets and high-frequency trading firms as customers for its settlement infrastructure.
For those businesses, Utexo said its software would support merchant payments, payouts and cross-border transfers. The March announcement also described transaction fees that could be known in advance and paid in USDT, presenting predictable settlement costs as a feature of the planned service.
In August 2025, Tether had announced its Bitcoin RGB deployment plans. At the time, the issuer said RGB had reached mainnet with version 0.11.1 and would allow users to keep Bitcoin and USDT in the same wallet.
According to Tether’s original announcement, the planned functionality included private transfers and sending or receiving value offline. Ardoino described the proposed asset as “native, lightweight, private, and scalable.”
In September, the chief executive also pointed to USDT’s return to Bitcoin with a brief post on X:
“It’s coming home.”
Tether’s U.S. stablecoin uses a separate bank-issued route
For Tether’s U.S.-focused stablecoin, Anchorage Digital has described a separate issuance arrangement involving USAT, rather than the USDT deployment planned through Utexo.
In coverage published Sep. 22, Anchorage’s USAT interoperability arrangement named LayerZero as its preferred partner for connecting bank-issued stablecoins across blockchain networks. The underlying Sep. 21 announcement identified USAT as the first Anchorage-issued token to launch with LayerZero’s OFT standard.
Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A. serves as USAT’s issuer, according to the bank’s announcement. The arrangement covers its stablecoin issuance platform, with LayerZero providing infrastructure for transferring supported assets between networks.
In its statement, Anchorage listed Ethereum, EVM-compatible networks and Solana among the ecosystems intended for future connections. The bank also named Western Union’s USDPT, OSL Group’s USDGO and Falcon Finance’s fUSD among the assets supported by its issuance platform.
For USDT’s earlier Bitcoin history, Tether has said Omni was the first transport layer it used in 2014. In its August 2023 notice, the issuer stopped minting USDT on Omni, Kusama, and Bitcoin Cash SLP.
Following community feedback, Tether revised its legacy-chain transition in August 2025. In that update, the company said it would discontinue direct issuance and redemption on five legacy networks, including Omni, while allowing holders to continue transferring existing tokens between wallets.
