On the same day that Tether the issuer of the USDT stablecoin announced that USDT is now on TON Network on MobeeID, Alessandro Giori, Tether’s senior strategic partnership manager based out of Dubai UAE, speaking at the TON Gateway event in Dubai UAE, announced that the upcoming USDT AED stablecoin will be launched on the TON Blockchain network.
The announcement was made during the TON Gateway annual event for the TON community. As per the website the TON Gateway event aims to power TON Blockchain and put crypto in every pocket by acting as a gateway to Web3 for millions of Telegram users. The Gateway brings the TON ecosystem together to collaborate and drive this mission forward.
During the event Giori was speaking on the topic of USDT on TON. He was followed by Oleg Andreev CEO of Ton Apps, who spoke on gasless payments on TON, while Victor Mendes, Director of BD of Top discussed stablecoin adoption on TON.
Giori stated, that Tether and Ton have a strong relationship because they both focus on emerging markets. He noted that Tether is focusing on Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey. While Tether has 400 million users, TON has 1 billion users.
He states, “ In Just six months since we launched USDT on Ton, we have seen 1 billion USDT transacted on Ton chain, the fastest adoption for Tether in its history. We have been around for 10 years, on Ton we have seen 160,000 transactions per day and 7.6 million wallets.”
He noted that for example Turkey has inflation of 80%, Tether is used to protect value. They save in USDT, from the fisherman in Turkey to guy in Argentina who sells meat, Tether allows them to save in a currency that is more stable than theirs.
He also noted, that TON and Tether have been jointly educating people on stablecoin and Blockchain in nine universities in Africa. He explains this is very important given that 3 billion people around the world are unbanked because they don’t have enough money for banks to accept to open accounts with them.
In his final comments he stated, “As you might have heard about our announcement with joint venture UAE Phoenix Group and Acorn Group for the launch of a dirham backed stablecoin, we are happy to announce we will do Tether AED stablecoin on TON.”
Tether in August 2024, announced its plans to offer an AED pegged stablecoin set to be launched in collaboration with UAE based Phoenix Group. The Tether dirham backed stablecoin will need to be licensed from the UAE Central Bank which recently came out with its Payment Token services regulation. The regulation notes that only dirham backed stablecoins can be used as legal tenders for the purchase of goods and services within the UAE. Tether’s USDT can only be used for the purchase of virtual assets.
Soon afterwards in October, AED Stablecoin LLC announced that the Central Bank of UAE had provided it with in principle approval to launch and establish its own stablecoin, AE Coin. This comes after the Central Bank of UAE announced the “Payment Token Services Regulation”; Circular No. 2/2024, dated 7 June 2024, to be licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE.
Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are shifting towards stablecoins as their preferred asset class. In Saudi Arabia, stablecoins accounted for 46.1% of the total crypto value received, while in the UAE, they accounted for 51.3% — both higher than the global average of 44.7%
