Today we are excited to announce that Tether is bringing USDT to bitcoin, with both on-chain transactions and Lightning Network support. This announcement will enable Tether to tap into the security and decentralization of the bitcoin blockchain together with the speed and scalability of Lightning, bringing the world's most popular stablecoin to bitcoin. Powered by the Taproot Assets protocol developed by Lightning Labs with contributions from the open source community, this integration makes use of the recent Taproot upgrade to bitcoin, and continues Tether's commitment to unstoppable technology.

With this announcement, we have the opportunity to bring hundreds of millions of users and trillions of dollars of stablecoin volume to bitcoin and Lightning. Total USDT volume topped $10T on-chain in 2024, rapidly closing in on Visa’s annual volume of $16T. Once fully integrated, users will be able to make cross-border payments with USDT on Lightning that settle instantly and at a fraction of the cost of other networks. Payment gateways and merchants accepting bitcoin over Lightning today will be able to add USDT as a payments option using the exact same infrastructure they’re currently running. Tether on Lightning will power the coming wave of AI agent transactions, allowing machines to pay machines with instant, high volume transactions. Everything from AI agents to autonomous vehicles will pay each other with stablecoins. Finally, USDT on bitcoin will foster new financial products within bitcoin’s growing defi and tokenization ecosystem, including new computation platforms, lending, trading, and financial assets on chain. Stablecoins on Lightning have been the most requested feature from the developer community over the last several years, and today’s announcement will make it a reality.

The over 350 million Tether users worldwide will soon have the option to transact using bitcoin and Lightning, embracing the values of bitcoin's peer-to-peer, decentralized network. This integration also brings bitcoin to the many users in emerging markets who rely on stablecoins regularly as a hedge against the devaluation of their local currencies and savings.

Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino made this announcement on stage in El Salvador today. When El Salvador announced they were making bitcoin legal tender in June 2021, it kicked off the Summer of Lightning as users, node operators, and application developers joined the network en masse. Users loved the instant settlement and low fees of the Lightning Network, but demand for stablecoins was enormous. We heard this feedback loud and clear, announcing the Taproot Assets protocol in April 2022 to bring stablecoins to the Lightning Network. It’s incredibly fitting to be making this announcement in the country that kicked off the demand for stablecoins on Lightning in the first place.

This marks a new era for stablecoins, transforming bitcoin and Lightning into true multi-asset networks. The world wants a global, decentralized protocol for value. Today’s announcement only further solidifies bitcoin's place in our unstoppable future.

Get Started Building with Stablecoins on Lightning

We are grateful to the bitcoin and Lightning developer community for their contributions to the protocol including feedback, testing, and integrating it into their products. We couldn’t have done this without the developers who have continuously iterated with our team, minting over 177,000 assets on-chain, building wallets, exchanges, bridges, and applications integrating Lightning functionality.

To get started building with USDT on Lightning, developers should download the latest version of the litd suite and use it in integrated mode. The litd bundle combines lnd, tapd, and a number of liquidity services into a single binary, providing the most straightforward way to integrate USDT on Lightning. It is also available in the most recent Polar release, a popular tool for rapid prototyping among application developers.

To get started with these tools: check out the API docs, and read the getting started guide. For a deeper technical explanation of Taproot Assets, dig into our developer documentation, or check out our Tapping into Taproot Assets series on Youtube. Join our Slack community, follow us on X, attend the Taproot Assets Community Calls, contribute code, or subscribe to our newsletter!