Eterna's Insights - September 2025

Tether Launches U.S.-Regulated Stablecoin USAT

Tether has unveiled USAT, a fully U.S.-regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin to be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., with Cantor Fitzgerald serving as reserve custodian and Bo Hines, former Executive Director of the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets, appointed as CEO of Tether USA. Rather than adapting its offshore USDT to meet new U.S. regulatory standards, Tether is pursuing a dual-track strategy: maintaining USDT for international markets while introducing a purpose-built, compliant product for domestic use under the GENIUS Act framework.

The move reflects both regulatory pragmatism and strategic positioning. USDT’s current $170B reserve mix, roughly 80% in Treasuries and cash equivalents and 20% in bitcoin, gold, loans, and other assets, fails to meet the strict collateral rules established under the new U.S. stablecoin law. Converting those reserves would be operationally complex and economically costly, likely shrinking Tether’s net interest margins and its ~$20B in dividend payouts to its venture arm. By contrast, USAT will be backed entirely by short-term Treasuries, cash, and repos mirroring the GENIUS Act’s blueprint. Hines’ appointment underscores Tether’s intent to align politically and institutionally with U.S. regulators, signaling a bid to legitimize its footprint in the American financial system.

Solana’s Alpenglow Upgrade Targets Sub-Second Finality

Solana validators have voted to adopt Alpenglow, a new consensus mechanism expected to significantly reduce block finality time and lower validator operating costs. The upgrade replaces Solana’s existing Proof of History (PoH) and TowerBFT setup with two components: Rotor and Votor. Rotor redesigns block propagation by replacing the current multi-hop Turbine structure with a single-hop, stake-weighted relay model, improving latency and simplifying data dissemination. Votor, meanwhile, introduces an offchain direct voting process that eliminates the need for onchain votes, cutting validator overhead and shrinking block finality from around 12.8 seconds to just 100-150 milliseconds.

Beyond performance, Alpenglow also enhances Solana’s resilience with a “20 + 20” model that allows the network to remain operational even if 20% of stake is controlled by adversarial actors and another 20% is offline. The design was developed by researchers from ETH Zurich, who previously identified vulnerabilities in Solana’s consensus, and is being implemented by Anza, the core Solana software development team. While rollout timing remains flexible, the community is targeting Breakpoint 2025 in December for deployment.

Google Empowers AI Agents with Onchain Payments

Google has unveiled the Agent Payment Protocol (AP2), a new standard enabling AI agents to send and receive payments on behalf of users and other agents. Building on its existing Agent2Agent (A2A) interoperability framework, AP2 adds a critical missing layer - payments - allowing autonomous agents to transact using blockchains and stablecoins for settlement. This innovation paves the way for seamless agent-to-agent commerce, where tasks, services, and data exchanges can be automatically compensated through micro-transactions.

Notably, AP2 integrates Coinbase’s x402 protocol, introduced earlier this year to allow agents to monetize services, automate micropayments, and pay one another. Google’s adoption of x402 suggests a broader convergence between AI and crypto infrastructure, where autonomous agents evolve from responding to prompts to participating directly in economic activity, marking a foundational step toward the machine-driven internet economy.

Tether Eyes $500B Valuation in Landmark Private Raise

Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, is reportedly seeking to raise $15–20 billion in a private placement that would value the company around $500 billion, according to Bloomberg. CEO Paolo Ardoino confirmed that Tether is “evaluating a raise from a selected group of high-profile investors” to accelerate expansion across its growing portfolio, spanning stablecoins, AI, commodity trading, energy, communications, and media. A valuation at this scale would place Tether among the world’s most valuable private firms, rivaling OpenAI and SpaceX.

The potential raise caps a period of rapid expansion for the company. In recent weeks, Tether launched Plasma, a new stablecoin-focused layer-1 backed by its sister exchange Bitfinex; hired Benjamin Habbel, founder of Limestone Capital, as Chief Business Officer; and announced USAT, a U.S.-regulated stablecoin to be issued via Anchorage Digital Bank. Meanwhile, USDT’s supply has surged to over $170 billion, nearly five times its level at the start of 2023. While still in early stages, the funding round expected to close by year-end underscores Tether’s ambition to evolve from a stablecoin issuer into a global financial and technology powerhouse.

SWIFT Partners with ConsenSys to Build Blockchain-Based Payment Infrastructure

SWIFT has announced a partnership with ConsenSys and Linea to integrate a blockchain-based shared ledger into its global interbank messaging network. The collaboration marks the beginning of SWIFT’s shift toward real-time, programmable payments. ConsenSys, the developer behind Ethereum, will build the phase-one prototype and define the roadmap, while Linea, its layer-2 network, provides interoperability with Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). The goal is to enable “always-on” cross-border payments and settlement, with transactions recorded, sequenced, and validated onchain under smart contract–based governance.

The initiative follows years of blockchain experimentation by SWIFT, including a 2024 pilot with UBS Asset Management and Chainlink that demonstrated tokenized fund subscriptions and redemptions using ISO 20022 messaging. Integrating Linea and CCIP provides a clear path for banks to connect traditional SWIFT messages to onchain execution, signaling a major step toward bridging legacy finance with blockchain rails. While still early, the project could redefine SWIFT’s role from a messaging intermediary to a transactional backbone for the tokenized financial system.