Two Tether tokens? Blame Uncle Sam

Tether's USAT is a labor of necessity born from the GENIUS ACT

Author

Colin Harper
September 16, 2025

Happy Tuesday!

Today, we break down why Tether really had no choice but to launch its new, U.S.-specific USAT stablecoin.

Plus, headlines from this week in Bitcoin!

And liquid fund manager Mike Alfred joins The Mining Pod.

Why Tether is launching USAT

Last week, Tether, the indisputable champion of the stablecoin market, announced that it would be starting from scratch to launch USAT, a US-only, GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin. 

The launch is an act of necessity for a company that has to align with new U.S. laws or risk losing its position as the crypto market’s leading stablecoin. So how did we get here?

Rewind to 2014. Bitcoin is barely five years old, and a no name company in a mocked, infant industry, Tether, decides to issue a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency on Bitcoin called USDT. 

Tether wasn’t the first – that title goes to BitShare’s now defunct BitUSD – but it would soon become the dominant stablecoin, and its success bred competitors. 

In Bitcoin’s early days, USDT provided vital dollar liquidity for a market often verboten to the traditional financial system. USDT would become the USD proxy benchmark for bitcoin and other cryptocurrency trading pairs, and it would also come to serve as a synthetic, offshore bank account for people from China to Venezuela. 

Now, Tether’s marketcap is $170 billion, and if the company were a nation, its U.S. Treasury bond holdings would make it the 18th largest holder. Tether and the stablecoin industry it ushered have become so consequential, that the U.S. Congress passed legislation, the GENIUS Act, that clearly regulates the industry.

Signed on July 18, 2025, the GENIUS Act would ultimately push Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, to design a made-for-America stablecoin, USAT, which it plans to launch at the end of 2025 subject to regulatory approval. 

The U.S. government distinguishes USDT as a “foreign stablecoin issuer,” so USAT will move Tether into the compliance window with U.S.’s new stablecoin law. Here’s how.

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News From Blockspace

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Nakamoto drops below Bitcoin value as PIPE unlock hits

KindlyMD’s Nakamoto (NAKA) fell more than 55% on September 15 and traded below the value of its bitcoin holdings after the SEC-cleared resale of previously restricted shares from recent financings. The company’s market cap is now well beneath the value of its 5,765 BTC, marking a discount to its bitcoin per share - link

Gemini prices IPO at $28 per share with a $3.3 billion valuation, raises $425 million

Semler Scientific (SMLR) revealed in an 8-K filing that shareholders approved an amendment on September 5 to raise the company’s authorized common shares from 50 million to 210 million, while rejecting authorization for 42 million shares of blank-check preferred stock. - link 

Strategy pauses MSTR ATM for the first time since revising guidance

Gemini, a global crypto platform founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 2014, priced its initial public offering of 15,178,572 shares of Class A common stock at $28.00 per share, raising approximately $425 million. - link

Crypto funds saw $3.3 billion inflow last week, AUM hit $239 billion: CoinShares

According to crypto asset manager CoinShares, crypto investment products attracted $3.3 billion in inflows last week, reversing a run of outflows amid softer U.S. macroeconomic data and pushing total assets under management to $239 billion, near August’s record high of $244 billion. — link

Blockspace Podcasts

Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Today, Mike Alfred, founder of Alpine Fox LP and a non‑executive director at IREN, joins us to talk about Bitcoin mining economics, AI‑GPU arbitrage, the importance of owning physical infrastructure, and how his permanent‑capital fund navigates massive drawdowns while staying contrarian in a hype‑driven market.

Where we drop fun topics with nothing to do with Bitcoin.

The first ever “college football game” took place between Rutgers and Princeton (formerly, the College of New Jersey) on November 6, 1869. I put quotes there because any modern American football fan would have been absolutely bewildered by the spectacle: 25 men in “Where’s Waldo?” caps, scrapping with each other to boot and bat a soccer-sized ball into the opposing goal (they could only use their feet and hands to boot the ball, but they couldn’t throw it). Teams scored 1 point per goal, with the first to 6 emerging victorious. Rutgers won the game 6-4.

-CMH

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