The issuer of USDT presented Tether Wallet, a self-custody application with support for USDT, USDA, XAU₮, and bitcoin, including Lightning Network.
Tether announced today, April 14, the launch of Tether Wallet, a self-custody wallet designed for everyday use. According to the company, the application supports USDT, USDA, XAU₮ (a tokenized version of Tether gold) and bitcoin (BTC), both on the main layer and through the Lightning Network (LN), the second-layer instant payment network of the Bitcoin network.
The development is based on the company's Wallet Development Kit (WDK), an open-source infrastructure designed for individuals, machines, and AI agents to autonomously create and control wallets. According to the statement, this technology aims to facilitate mass transactions between users and automated systems.
The new wallet allows sending funds to usernames in the format ‘@tether.me’ via a single QR code, regardless of the network used.
The new wallet operates on the following networks:
USDT, XAUT: Ethereum, Polygon, Plasma, and Arbitrum.
USAT: Ethereum.
BTC: Bitcoin and Lightning Network.
One feature of this new wallet is that fees are paid in the token or cryptocurrency being sent, regardless of the network used.
The wallet app is only available for download on Android and iOS devices.
According to the announcement, the user retains control of their private keys through a 12-word recovery seed. However, Tether Wallet offers an optional encrypted backup service in the cloud. As detailed by the firm on its website, this system creates an encrypted backup where data is stored on Tether's servers, while the decryption key is kept in the user's personal cloud service (Google Drive, iCloud, etc.).
It's important to clarify that while Tether Wallet is marketed as self-custody, the use of this cloud backup introduces a shared or hybrid custody component that alters its strictly sovereign nature.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, stated: "Tether has achieved the broadest financial inclusion success story in human history." Ardoino also emphasized that the wallet eliminates the need to hold gas tokens (ETH, TRON) to send assets like USDT.
