Tether has led a $7 million Series A funding round in Pact Labs, an infrastructure provider that will help accelerate the adoption of its U.S.-focused stablecoin, USAT, for payroll, payments, and credit services. The round also saw participation from Blockchange Ventures and Lasagna, according to a statement released Tuesday.
The investment aims to modernize wage settlements and enable 24/7 digital dollar transactions in the United States, building on Tether’s experience with USDT in emerging markets. “Workers in emerging markets have used USD₮ to bridge payroll gaps for years because their domestic systems failed them first,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. “We are now building the same capability into the U.S. market, with USA₮, because even a functional system built on batch processing means unnecessary costs for the people who can least absorb them.”
USAT, which launched in January, was designed to comply with the GENIUS Act—the stablecoin legislation passed by Congress last year. Unlike Tether’s flagship USDT (which is not available to U.S. customers despite its dollar reserves), USAT targets the regulated U.S. market. Pact Labs will act as the payment rails, allowing employers to process salaries faster and workers to receive funds without traditional banking delays. Bo Hines, CEO of Tether USAT, said: “Pact Labs gives us the rails to make digital dollars designed to be compliant with U.S. regulations directly into the hands of millions of American workers, faster, cheaper, and without the intermediaries that slow them down.”
According to Tether’s most recent attestation, USAT’s circulating supply exceeded $140 million in April. The Pact Labs partnership is expected to expand real-world use cases for the stablecoin, particularly in payroll and credit, while reinforcing Tether’s regulated strategy in the U.S.
