UAE’s Utexo Secures $7.5M Tether-Led Funding to Pioneer Bitcoin-Based Stablecoin Revolution

UAE-based fintech Utexo has raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round co-led by Tether to build USDT stablecoin payment infrastructure directly on the Bitcoin network. The investment signals a major institutional push to bring scalable, Bitcoin-native stablecoin settlement to market, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Maven11 Capital, and other prominent crypto venture firms.

How is Utexo building stablecoin infrastructure on Bitcoin?

The Utexo infrastructure enables native USDT settlement directly on Bitcoin, as well as Lightning network. The fees are fixed and predictable regardless of network conditions.

All settlement costs are paid in USDT, while transactions are settled privately, anchored to Bitcoin’s security models and completed in under 1 second.

Utexo has raised $7.5M from @tether, @BigBrainVC, and @PortalVentures to bring USDT natively on Bitcoin.

After more than a decade, USDT is finally coming home. pic.twitter.com/Y8vIh0zU4P

Unlike public transaction graphs on other networks, Utexo’s approach prioritizes private execution with only encrypted transactions being written on-chain, preventing the disclosure of counterparties’ payment flows and wallet addresses.

Utexo has designed its infrastructure offerings specifically for payment service providers, exchanges, wallets, high-frequency trading firms, and platforms already moving large volumes of USDT for merchant settlement, payouts, cross-border transfers, and global commerce.

“We built Utexo so that USDT could move on Bitcoin the way money is supposed to move: instantly, privately, with no surprises on costs,” said Chris Hutchinson, Co-founder of Utexo.

Hutchinson explains that Utexo is combining Bitcoin, Lightning and RGB into a usable payment stack. He states, “Our partners integrate our API once and can route USDT natively on the most resilient open network ever built, with full control over their cost structure. No existing rail offers this degree of flexibility.”

“For the first time, wallets will be able to offer their users free USDT transactions,” said Viktor Ihnatiuk, Co-founder of Utexo. “Utexo provides a built-in growth flywheel: wallets grow their user base, while USDT bootstraps adoption on Bitcoin. The divorce between the two most important digital assets is finally over. After more than a decade, we’re bringing USDT back home.”

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