Utexo, a startup building Bitcoin-native stablecoin settlement infrastructure, announced a $7.5 million seed round co-led by Tether, Big Brain Holdings, and Portal Ventures.
The round also included participation from Franklin Templeton, Maven11 Capital, Fulgur Ventures, Alchemy VC, Ethereal Ventures, Auros Ventures, Arcanum Capital, Paper Ventures, Axia8, FlowTraders, Plan B, Gate Ventures, Sats Ventures, and strategic angels including operators from Ledger, Hyperion, BTC Turk, Echo, Legion, and SOLV.
The company was founded to address a longstanding gap in the cryptocurrency ecosystem: enabling USDT to settle natively on Bitcoin with robust, production-ready payment rails. Tether’s
CEO, Paolo Ardoino, said that Bitcoin has been central to the stablecoin issuer’s long-term vision for USDT. “Market cycles come and go, but the need for open and resilient settlement infrastructure remains constant,” Ardoino said.
He added that Utexo provides a layer that makes Bitcoin-native USDT settlement viable at scale, strengthening Bitcoin’s role as a global settlement rail for real-world dollar transactions.
Historically, the Lightning Network and RGB protocols have offered technical capabilities for Bitcoin-based payments, but their complexity limited adoption in production environments. Utexo abstracts these complexities behind a single API layer, allowing payment operators to route USDT settlement over Bitcoin-native rails without modifying custody, compliance workflows, or user experiences.
Chris Hutchinson, co-founder of Utexo, explained the system’s value proposition: “We built Utexo so that USDT could move on Bitcoin the way money is supposed to move: instantly, privately, with no surprises on costs. Our partners integrate our API once and can route USDT on the most resilient open network ever built, with full control over cost structure.”
Viktor Ihnatiuk, co-founder, added that the infrastructure allows wallets to offer free USDT transactions while boosting adoption of Bitcoin-native stablecoins.
The infrastructure supports atomic settlement, privacy-preserving execution, and predictable fees for every transaction, independent of network congestion.
Settlement occurs in USDT and is anchored to Bitcoin’s security model, completing in under one second. Utexo encrypts all on-chain transactions, preventing disclosure of counterparties and wallet addresses, distinguishing it from public transaction graphs on other networks.
Tether and Bitcoin
By providing a reliable, predictable settlement layer, the company enables Bitcoin to serve as a viable rail for dollar-denominated payments, advancing Tether’s vision of native USDT on Bitcoin.
In February, Tether open-sourced MiningOS (MOS), a modular operating system for managing and automating bitcoin mining operations, unveiled at the 2026 Plan ₿ Forum in San Salvador.
The system provides unified control over hardware, energy, and site infrastructure using a peer-to-peer architecture, reducing reliance on proprietary or centralized software.
Targeted at exchanges, wallets, payment service providers, high-frequency trading firms, and platforms handling large volumes of USDT, Utexo focuses on routing existing stablecoin flows over Bitcoin rather than launching speculative L2 solutions.