Tether leads $8M round in Speed to expand USDT payments on Bitcoin Lightning

Published: 2025-12-17 04:34:36 |

Tether led an $8 million funding round in Speed, a startup building stablecoin payment infrastructure on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, with participation from Ego Death Capital. Speed operates Speed Wallet and Speed Merchant, serving more than 1.2 million users across consumers, creators, platforms and merchants and processing over $1.5 billion in annual payment volume. Tether framed the investment as part of a strategy to expand USDT utility on Bitcoin-layer payments and to back infrastructure that enables low-fee, high-scale and compliant settlements. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino highlighted Speed’s Lightning-native architecture as a model for integrating stablecoins with low-cost global settlement. The deal adds to Tether’s portfolio of 140+ backed companies as the issuer diversifies investments funded by profits from US Treasury holdings that support USDT. Key trading-relevant figures: $8M round, 1.2M+ users, $1.5B+ annual payments, and continued Tether backing of USDT infrastructure.

Bullish

The investment is likely bullish for USDT specifically. Tether’s $8M backing of Speed directly supports on-chain and Lightning-layer payment rails that increase USDT utility and liquidity in payments. Greater merchant and user adoption through Speed Wallet and Speed Merchant (1.2M+ users, $1.5B+ annual volume) can raise transactional demand for USDT, reduce friction for fiat-crypto settlement, and strengthen network effects for USDT on Bitcoin. In the short term, the market price impact on USDT is likely muted because USDT is a stablecoin pegged to the dollar; however, the news can increase trading activity and confidence in USDT rails, benefiting USDT liquidity and market-making. In the medium to long term, expanded payment infrastructure and higher on-chain/Lightning usage may modestly increase demand for USDT balances held across exchanges and payment platforms, supporting stablecoin market share versus competitors. The move is neutral-to-positive for BTC price indirectly (more payment use of Lightning), but for USDT itself the effect is unambiguously supportive for adoption—hence a bullish classification for USDT adoption and utility.