Tether Co-Founder Reeve Collins is reportedly backing a new stablecoin project called Pi Protocol that will be backed by yield-bearing real-world assets like bonds.
The new stablecoin is expected to debut on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains in the second half of the year, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Feb. 18).
Pi aims to let industry participants who market the stablecoin get most of the profits from it, according to the report.
The company will use smart contracts to mint its USP stablecoin and will reward the minters with another token, USI, as yield, the report said.
“We view Pi Protocol as the evolution of stablecoins,” Collins told Bloomberg. “Tether has been extremely successful in showcasing demand for stablecoins. But they keep all the yield. We believe 10 years later the market is really ready to evolve.”
Collins served as Tether’s first CEO from 2013 to 2015, when he and his partners sold the company to the operators of the crypto exchange Bitfinex, according to the report.
Tether said in January that it made $13 billion in profits in 2024, Bloomberg reported Jan. 31, adding that the stablecoin issuer files quarterly information as part of a third-party attestation by accounting firm BDO rather than issuing audited financial statements.
In addition, Tether said it issued more than $23 billion in USDT in the last three months of 2024, and had more than $7 billion in excess reserves.
It was reported in January that an executive order issued by President Donald Trump will boost stablecoins and issuers like Tether and Circle Internet Financial.
Trump’s order aligned stablecoin’s with the government’s efforts to maintain the global supremacy of the dollar and blocked a potential competitor to stablecoins by barring development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
On Monday (Feb. 17), Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong (SCBHK), Animoca Brands and HKT said they agreed to form a joint venture to issue a stablecoin backed by the Hong Kong dollar.
Cedar Money said Jan. 30 that it raised $9.9 million in a seed round to support the growth of its payments software that uses stablecoins to facilitate cross-border payments between developed and emerging markets.
