Tether backed USA₮ expands to Celo in first move beyond Ethereum

USA₮, the dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and supported by Tether, is expanding to Celo, marking its first blockchain deployment beyond Ethereum.

The move places the regulated token on a network that has become one of the most active rails for real-world stablecoin use.

Tether introduced the token in January as a US-regulated product issued through Anchorage Digital Bank under federal OCC oversight, positioning it as a domestic complement to USD₮ rather than a replacement for its flagship offshore stablecoin. The project was built to comply with the GENIUS Act and target US users through a more tightly regulated structure.

Celo gives USA₮ immediate access to a distribution network that already looks built for stablecoin payments. Opera said this month that MiniPay, its self-custodial wallet on Celo, has grown to more than 14 million account registrations and processed over 420 million transactions across more than 66 countries.

Opera and Celo also said the network now counts more than 4.23 million weekly active USD₮ users, underscoring how central stablecoins have become to activity on the chain.

That helps explain why Celo was chosen as the first expansion chain. The network has leaned into payments with features such as fee abstraction, which lets users pay gas in stablecoins instead of a native token, along with a mobile-first design geared toward cheap and simple transfers. Celo describes itself as an Ethereum layer 2 focused on fast, low-cost payments and real-world adoption.

Google Cloud is also part of the rollout, adding a broader infrastructure layer to the launch. The company has been expanding further into digital asset and payments infrastructure through products such as Universal Ledger, which it says is built for programmable transfers and compliance focused financial applications. In this case, the USA₮ rollout connects that infrastructure to a privacy preserving proof of humanity distribution model through Self.

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