Tether, issuer of the most popular stablecoin, USDT launched a self-custodial crypto wallet on Tuesday aimed at putting its stablecoin network directly into the hands of users, aiming to make crypto payments as easy as sending a message.
The new app, called tether.wallet, allows users to hold and send USDT and USAT stablecoins (USAT), XAUT gold-backed token (XAUT), and bitcoin. across multiple blockchains. It eliminates common friction points by allowing users to pay transaction fees on the asset they send and by replacing long wallet addresses with human-readable names like “[email protected].”
The move is notable for Tether because it marks a shift toward a consumer-facing app away from being a crypto payments intermediary that issues the most popular digital dollar, the $185 billion USDT token. Tether said more than 570 million users already interact with its technology, largely indirectly through exchanges and payment gateways. The new wallet brings those functions to a direct interface, where users control their private keys and sign transactions on their own devices.
The release is based on Tether’s Wallet Development Kit (WDK), a set of open source tools the company developed for third-party efforts like the Rumble wallet, which uses Tether’s infrastructure to enable creator payments and peer-to-peer transfers.
“Tether.wallet is ‘the people’s wallet,’ said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, “because it truly reflects the natural evolution of Tether’s role, from building the foundations of the digital asset economy to making it directly usable by anyone, ready for a future where tens of billions of humans, machines and trillions of AI agents will transact seamlessly at the speed of light.”
