Tether’s U.S.-focused stablecoin USAT is now live on Celo, giving users a way to pay Celo transaction fees directly in the dollar-pegged token rather than first acquiring the network’s native asset. The deployment is USAT’s second on a mainnet blockchain after Ethereum, according to Tether’s Wednesday announcement.
The Celo version of USAT includes native minting and burning, allowing supply to be issued and redeemed directly on the network. It also uses Celo’s fee-abstraction system, which lets compatible ERC-20 tokens serve as gas currencies for transactions.
That arrangement removes a practical obstacle for people moving stablecoins on-chain: they can hold and spend USAT without maintaining a separate balance of CELO solely for network fees. Users would still pay a fee, but the cost can be denominated in the asset they are already using.
Celo’s fee system puts USAT at the center of transactions
Celo enabled ERC-20 fee payments through its CIP-64 upgrade. The mechanism allows applications and users to select supported tokens for gas, replacing the conventional requirement to pay every transaction fee in a blockchain’s native currency.
For a stablecoin designed around dollar settlement, the feature gives USAT a more direct role than simply serving as a transfer asset. A user sending USAT, interacting with a decentralized application, or swapping tokens could pay the associated Celo network fee in USAT, subject to wallet and application support.
The structure could be particularly useful for mobile wallets and payment-focused applications, where asking users to acquire and manage a second volatile token has often added friction. It also gives developers a clearer way to present transaction costs in dollar terms, rather than requiring users to estimate the value of a fluctuating gas token.
Tether had disclosed plans for the Celo deployment in March. The launch follows Celo’s transition from a standalone Layer 1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer 2 network built with the OP Stack, completed in March 2025.
USAT extends Tether’s regulated U.S. offering
USAT launched in January as a stablecoin intended to operate under the U.S. GENIUS Act stablecoin framework described by Tether. The token is backed 1-to-1 by reserves held in cash or high-quality liquid cash equivalents, including U.S. Treasurys, according to the project’s published structure.
Anchorage Digital Bank issues USAT. Anchorage is federally chartered and regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, placing the issuer under a different regulatory model from the one associated with Tether’s much larger USDT token.
Published market data cited in the announcement placed USAT’s market capitalization at about $185 million. That remains small beside USDT, whose supply was listed at roughly $180 billion. The difference illustrates that USAT is entering Celo as an early-stage product, even as it benefits from the Tether brand and an existing stablecoin user base on the network.
Tether US Chief Executive Officer Bo Hines has been closely associated with the company’s U.S. strategy. Before joining Tether, Hines served as executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets from January through August 2025, following an earlier advisory role in the Trump administration.
Celo has an established Tether user base
Celo is not a new venue for Tether assets. USDT was deployed on the network in 2024, and Tether said Celo subsequently accounted for its largest base of weekly active USDT users. The company also said Celo represented 28% of cross-blockchain USDT transfers.
Those figures come from Tether’s announcement and describe activity across its own stablecoin ecosystem rather than Celo’s total transaction market. They nevertheless point to an existing audience for dollar-denominated transfers on the chain, which gives USAT a distribution advantage over a launch on a network with little prior Tether usage.
Tether’s transparency page lists about $470 million of USDT as authorized on Celo, ranking the network eighth among blockchains by authorized USDT supply. Authorized supply can differ from tokens actively circulating on a chain, since it reflects the amount made available for issuance rather than necessarily held by users or deployed in applications.
DefiLlama data cited in the report placed Celo’s total stablecoin supply near $136 million, with Tether accounting for 57.6%, or about $78.8 million. The gap between Celo’s reported circulating stablecoin total and Tether’s authorized USDT figure underlines the distinction between available supply and tokens currently in use.
Tether also said Celo held more than 90% of the market for XAUt0, an omnichain version of Tether Gold. Together, the USDT and XAUt0 figures suggest Celo has become a meaningful distribution channel for several Tether-linked assets, rather than merely a new technical deployment destination.
Mobile payments remain part of Celo’s strategy
Celo was founded in 2017 and launched its mainnet on Earth Day in 2020 with a focus on mobile-first financial applications. Its move to the OP Stack placed the network closer to Ethereum’s growing Layer 2 ecosystem while preserving its emphasis on low-cost transfers and phone-based access.
Opera has also launched a self-custodial stablecoin wallet on Celo with support from Tether. The announcement said the product has onboarded more than 18 million users globally, although onboarding does not necessarily indicate active wallet usage or USAT adoption.
USAT’s Celo launch gives that mobile-oriented ecosystem a regulated, dollar-pegged token that can also handle network fees. Whether it gains material circulation will depend less on the token’s technical availability than on wallet integration, payment applications, liquidity and whether users choose USAT alongside the much larger USDT market already established on Celo.
To understand the policy behind USAT’s framework, explore the GENIUS Act stablecoin overview and its market impact.
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