Summary
- Tether said it has launched Tether Wallet, a self-custody wallet, a mobile wallet aimed at retail users that supports USDT and Bitcoin (BTC).
- The company said the wallet lets users pay fees with the transferred asset without a separate network fee token, and offers username-based transfers to improve access to stablecoin and Bitcoin payments.
- The wallet includes a cloud private-key backup feature, but it has not clearly disclosed whether users can disable it, leaving room for debate over security.
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Tether has launched a non-custodial, or self-custody, wallet aimed at retail users.
Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 14 that Tether unveiled its mobile wallet, Tether Wallet. The wallet supports Tether-issued assets including USDT, the gold-backed token XAUt and Bitcoin.
Users do not need to hold a separate token to pay network fees. Instead, they can pay fees with the asset being transferred and send funds using a username rather than a long wallet address.
Tether said the wallet is fully non-custodial. All transactions are signed directly on the user's device, while private keys and recovery phrases remain under the user's sole control.
The wallet also supports multiple networks including Ethereum, Polygon and Arbitrum. For Bitcoin, it works with both on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network.
Some features could still draw scrutiny. The wallet allows private keys to be backed up to the cloud, but it has not clearly disclosed whether that feature can be turned off. Similar cloud-based key recovery methods have previously faced security criticism.
Tether said the launch is aimed at improving access to stablecoin and Bitcoin payments while offering a simpler user experience.
Suehyeon Lee
shlee@bloomingbit.ioI'm reporter Suehyeon Lee, your Web3 Moderator.
