Tether brings USDT and gold stablecoins to the TON blockchain

Stablecoin issuer Tether is launching its U.S. dollar-backed USDT and gold-backed XAUT stablecoins on The Open Network (TON) blockchain.

USDT on TON will go live on April 20, and XAUT on TON will follow in the coming months, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told The Block. While USDT is available on over a dozen blockchains, TON is the second blockchain XAUT is expanding onto after Ethereum, Ardoino said.

"The launch of USDT and XAUT on TON will allow seamless value transfer, increasing activity and liquidity while offering users a financial experience that can match those found in the traditional financial system," Ardoino said.

Bringing USDT and XAUT on the TON blockchain will help expand access to decentralized applications across verticals, including payments and gaming, Tether said.

A ton of attention

Tether's expansion on TON comes as the Layer 1 blockchain has recently been in the limelight. In February, the messaging platform Telegram revealed plans to share advertisement revenue with channel owners and pay rewards using Toncoin, the native cryptocurrency of TON. Toncoin has grown to become the ninth largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $24.4 billion, according to The Block's Toncoin Price Page.

"Telegram has an impressive ecosystem with 900 million monthly active users. Tether has more than 300 million users globally. Tether and Telegram can empower each other's ecosystems," Ardoino told The Block.

Tether's TON integration comes as USDT's circulating supply has surpassed 109 billion. The stablecoin's total supply, including authorized but not issued tokens, is now over 114 billion, according to The Block's Data Dashboard. XAUT is a smaller stablecoin, and its total supply currently stands at over 246,000.