Tether USD USD₮

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced USD₮ on TON on 19 April 2024 in a joint keynote at Token2049 in Dubai, sharing the stage with Telegram founder Pavel Durov and The Open Platform CEO Andrew Rogozov. Durov and Rogozov took part as partners; the token is issued by Tether. Ardoino told The Block that the token would go live on 20 April 2024. At the time, Tron was the default network for USDT in Telegram's Wallet, and the launch was presented as bringing USD₮ natively into the Telegram and TON ecosystem. Tether said TON brought the number of blockchains carrying USDT to 15 and that the token could give Telegram users simple peer-to-peer payments, citing Telegram's own estimate of over 900 million users. The company also said it would bring USD₮ to TON-based apps for payments and gaming.

Alongside the April 2024 launch, the TON Foundation set aside about 11 million Gram, the native coin of the TON network, to reward early USD₮ users on TON. This was the Foundation's own campaign, not an investment in Tether. As reported, 5 million Gram went to boosted rewards for USD₮ liquidity pools on DeDust and STON.fi, 5 million Gram to users of USD₮ in the Earn campaign of Telegram's Wallet, and 1.2 million Gram to cover free withdrawals through partner centralised exchanges. The Foundation also said USD₮ on TON would start with fiat on-ramps from most currencies, with off-ramps to bank accounts and cards planned to follow.

According to figures from the TON team, reported in September 2024, authorized USD₮ issuance on TON had recently passed $1 billion. Of that amount, about $720.6 million was in circulation and $309.3 million was authorized but not yet issued. Growth had started early: the same report said USD₮ supply on TON passed $130 million within about two weeks of its launch in April. In September 2024, Cointelegraph also described USD₮ as the stablecoin of choice for many Telegram Mini Apps that settle on TON.

Beyond USD₮, Ardoino said in April 2024 that Tether Gold (XAUT) would come to TON in the following months, which would make TON the second blockchain for XAUT after Ethereum. At the TON Gateway event in Dubai, reported by Cointelegraph on 1 November 2024, Tether senior strategic partnership manager Alessandro Giori announced that USD₮ on TON would be available on the Fireblocks digital asset platform and said more than 100 platforms had integrated it. Tether also said there that its planned stablecoin pegged to the UAE dirham, a separate token, would launch on TON.