Farewell to platform tax: USDT as native Gas, Tether empire lays a new foundation

A seemingly ordinary roadmap announcement is stirring a deep undercurrent beneath the ripples of the crypto world. In early July, the first Layer 1 network with USDT as native Gas, "Stable", released its three-phase development plan. On the surface, this appears to be just another new project trying to grab a share of the crowded public chain track. However, when we part the mist and connect this thread with Tether's recent seemingly unrelated layouts - the mysterious development team, another Bitcoin sidechain called "Plasma", and CEO Paolo Ardoino's subtle stance amid the regulatory storm - a strategic canvas far grander and more precise than imagined is gradually unfolding. This is not a simple product launch, but a fundamental strategic shift by stablecoin giant Tether. The company that built a trillion-dollar empire by issuing "digital dollars" on territories like Ethereum and TRON is now quietly launching an "independence movement". It is no longer satisfied with being just a "super app" on other blockchains, but is personally entering the field to build its own financial infrastructure - the world's capital trajectory. The core question of this strategic move is: Why would a company that generates billions of dollars in profits annually through its existing model choose to subvert the pattern that made it successful? What internal pressures and external threats are forcing it to transform from a light-asset "application layer" player to a heavy-asset "infrastructure layer" titan? What does its carefully designed "dual-chain parallel" strategy reveal about Tether's ultimate ambition to dominate global digital finance?

• Bitfinex: As Tether's sister company, it is the main capital provider and project incubator, leading investments in Plasma and Stable, thereby avoiding direct financial involvement of Tether.
• USDT0: This is the technical hub of the entire strategy. Built on LayerZero's OFT standard, it becomes a bridge connecting Tether's existing circulation system with emerging proprietary public chains through a "lock-mint" mechanism, ensuring liquidity unification.
• Everdawn Labs: This mysterious software development company registered in the British Virgin Islands is the actual manager and operator of the USDT0 protocol. It is highly likely to be the actual development team behind the "Stable" network and an important technical partner of Plasma.

This four-party structure composed of "Tether (brand and liquidity) - Bitfinex (capital) - Everdawn Labs (technology) - USDT0 (protocol)" perfectly explains Ardoino's "contradictory" remarks. From a legal perspective, Tether itself indeed does not directly operate a public chain. However, through this power network of affiliated companies and partners, it achieves absolute control and strategic guidance of the entire ecosystem. This is a sophisticated legal and business architecture design born to cope with the complex global regulatory environment.

Deconstructing the Engine Room: Tether's New Financial Technology Stack

Tether's ambition is not only reflected in its strategic layout but also in its meticulous selection of underlying technologies. It is not blindly chasing technological trends, but like an experienced chief engineer, selecting the most mature and reliable components from the entire industry to build a "super engine" specifically optimized for institutional-level finance.

In terms of interoperability, Tether chose LayerZero's OFT standard to build its cross-chain USDT (USDT0). Unlike traditional "wrapped" assets, OFT adopts a "burn-mint" model, ensuring that USDT0 circulating on any chain is standardized and controlled by the issuer, fundamentally solving liquidity fragmentation and third-party bridge security risks. This stands in sharp contrast to Circle's proprietary CCTP protocol, with Tether aiming to create a more open and composable financial track, while Circle appears more like a closed "walled garden".

In terms of performance, Tether also demonstrates its "integrated innovation" approach. The "optimistic parallel execution" equipped for "Stable" is an effective path verified by new-generation high-performance public chains like Monad and Sei, capable of achieving exponential throughput growth. The PlasmaBFT consensus protocol equipped for "Plasma" is a customized implementation based on the mature "Fast HotStuff" protocol, providing lower latency and faster finality for payment settlement scenarios. This pragmatic and efficient technology selection strategy significantly shortens the time to market for building reliable infrastructure for institutional clients.

Geopolitical Endgame: Dancing in the Regulatory World

Just as Tether is intensively laying out its infrastructure, the global regulatory landscape is also undergoing dramatic changes. The GENIUS Act being pushed forward by the US Congress will have a profound impact on the entire stablecoin industry. The core of the bill is to establish a strict stablecoin regulatory framework within the United States, requiring issuers to hold 1:1 high-quality liquid assets as reserves and undergo strict audits and supervision.

Facing this regulatory storm that could reshape the industry, Paolo Ardoino and Tether have demonstrated remarkable strategic flexibility, launching a combination that can be described as a textbook-level strategy:

1. Consolidate Offshore Hegemony: Continue positioning existing USDT as the core product serving emerging markets and unbanked populations. The newly established Plasma and Stable networks are precisely designed to provide an unprecedented efficient and low-cost settlement track for this massive offshore dollar market.
2. Develop Onshore Markets: Ardoino has clearly stated that Tether plans to launch a brand new, fully compliant stablecoin in the United States that meets all requirements of the GENIUS Act. This new "US version of Tether" will compete directly with Circle's USDC in the US compliance arena.

This "two-pronged strategy" allows Tether to simultaneously meet the needs of different types of institutions. International traders requiring global, efficient settlement can use its offshore USDT and dedicated public chains. Wall Street asset management firms needing complete compliance and US legal protection can use its future onshore stablecoin. It is evident that Tether is not passively responding to regulation but actively leveraging it. A regulatory bill that could have threatened its survival has instead become a strategic catalyst for launching a global market "pincer attack".

Conclusion: The New Foundation of an Empire

Looking back at the initial roadmap for the "Stable" network, we can now clearly see that it is not an isolated blueprint, but a foundational declaration of a vast empire's new base. Tether is undergoing a profound transformation, evolving from an "application" dependent on others to a vertically integrated financial infrastructure platform with its own sovereign territory.

By constructing Plasma and Stable, these two public chains, Tether simultaneously solves its long-standing issues of value spillover and platform risk. It is internalizing the hidden "platform tax" of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars annually flowing to networks like Ethereum and TRON back into the value of its own ecosystem. More importantly, it has established a powerful technological and commercial moat, composed of its trillion-level liquidity, two proprietary public chains, and a sophisticated strategy of dancing with global regulations, making it difficult for any competitor to overcome.

The profound impact of this transformation has just begun to emerge. For Ethereum and TRON, they are about to face the risk of losing their most important "tenant" in their ecosystem. For Circle, it will no longer face an opponent that only dominates in the offshore market, but a powerful enemy capable of launching attacks on both global compliant and non-compliant battlefields. A private entity is constructing a underlying track independent of the traditional banking system that may carry most of the global value transfer in the future. Tether's grand strategy is now clear, and a "Tether economy" with USDT as its native currency is rising on the horizon.