Tether launches self-custody “tether.wallet” for USDT, gold and Bitcoin

Tether’s new self-custody tether.wallet puts USDT rails directly in users’ hands, blending stablecoin plumbing with a consumer payments app.

Tether has launched tether.wallet, a self-custody digital wallet that connects users directly to the company’s global payments and settlement infrastructure, extending its reach far beyond exchanges and fintech partners.

Tether pushes infrastructure directly to users

The product, described by promoters as “the people’s wallet,” is Tether’s first large-scale attempt to put its rails in the hands of end users rather than remaining a pure back-end liquidity provider.

According to an update shared by BlockBeats and other industry outlets, tether.wallet supports Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT, its gold-backed token XAUT, the USA₮ stablecoin and Bitcoin (BTC), including both on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network.

At launch, the app runs across Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and Tether’s Plasma network, with more chains expected to be added as the rollout continues.

Tether said the new wallet “puts Tether’s global financial infrastructure directly into users’ hands,” opening a distribution network that the company claims already powers more than 570 million wallets worldwide as of March 2026.

In a statement highlighted by Coinpedia, CEO Paolo Ardoino said the goal is to let “users send value as easily as sending a message, without relying on intermediaries and without giving up control of their assets,” underscoring the wallet’s fully self-custodial model where private keys and recovery phrases remain with the user.

Instead of long hexadecimal strings, tether.wallet allows transfers via human-readable identifiers such as [email protected], abstracting the underlying network routing while still settling on public blockchains.

Users can also pay transaction fees in the same asset they are sending, removing the need to manage separate gas tokens and aligning the experience more closely with traditional payment apps.

The launch builds on Tether’s earlier release of an open-source Wallet Development Kit and AI-focused wallet initiatives, which were designed to enable “trillions of self-custodial wallets” across Bitcoin, Lightning and multiple stablecoin networks.

As regulators from the European Central Bank to U.S. agencies intensify scrutiny of stablecoins even as banks experiment with tokenized money, Tether’s direct-to-consumer pivot via tether.wallet signals a bid to anchor its $USDT infrastructure at the retail layer as well as in institutional settlement.