Bitfinex Securities announced on Monday the resumption of its tokenized bond issuance program, with a new offering for the Luxembourg-based securitization fund ALTERNATIVE expected to raise over $10 million. The bonds will be denominated in Tether's USDt (USDT) and fully issued, settled, and managed on the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain.
The move builds on a track record of four prior issuances since 2023, which collectively raised $6.2 million. Three of those bonds have already matured and been fully repaid, returning approximately $1 million in principal to investors. Throughout these offerings, investors received 20 onchain coupon payments totaling more than $1.1 million, completing the first full tokenized bond cycle in 2025.
These bonds provide exposure to emerging-market private credit, specifically financing small and medium-sized businesses and women-led enterprises. They typically have an 11-month duration and operate alongside the issuer's conventional bond program. While transactions are recorded on the Liquid Network, key settlement details are shielded by its confidential transaction features.
Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex, told Cointelegraph that the primary buyers are high-net-worth crypto investors and crypto-focused institutions from Europe and Asia, who are seeking yield on their idle USDt holdings. "There’s been a lot of discussion this year around yield-generating stablecoins. This product offers a solution with an easy, regulated and established vehicle for earning yield on USDt balances," Knutson said.
Bitfinex Securities operates under licenses in the Astana International Financial Centre in Kazakhstan and in El Salvador, handling issuance, listing, and secondary trading. Tether’s Hadron platform supports the token management. The platform now lists about $250 million in regulated tokenized securities.
The relaunch occurs amidst an intense regulatory debate in the United States over whether stablecoins should be allowed to offer yield. The US GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, barred stablecoin issuers from paying yield but did not explicitly prohibit third parties from offering returns through separate products. This "loophole" has allowed exchanges like Bitfinex to structure securities that generate yield in stablecoins.
Traditional banks have raised alarms. In January, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan warned that interest-bearing stablecoin products could drain as much as $6 trillion in deposits from US banks, potentially reducing lending capacity and increasing funding costs.
This issue has become a central point of contention for the proposed CLARITY Act, which aims to establish a broader US regulatory framework for digital assets. On Jan. 14, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong withdrew his support for the bill, citing stablecoin yield as a key sticking point. However, some lawmakers remain optimistic; US Senator Bernie Moreno said on Feb. 18 that he hopes Congress can move forward on market structure legislation by April. Prediction market data from Polymarket currently assigns a 70% probability that the Clarity Act will be signed into law in 2026.
