Tether invests in LayerZero Labs as it doubles down on cross-chain tech, agentic finance

Tether Investments, the investment arm of the leading stablecoin issuer, has made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, which develops an interoperability protocol called LayerZero.

The move is essentially a bet on the technology underpinning USDt0, a blockchain-agnostic version of Tether’s dollar-pegged token that has moved over $70 billion across blockchains in less than a year, according to a press release the company shared.

LayerZero’s infrastructure enables cryptocurrencies to flow across different blockchains without fragmentation or illiquidity. That allows developers building financial tools to rely on stablecoins without getting their funds locked in a single network.

That same architecture also supports more experimental use cases, like AI agents managing their own wallets and sending payments autonomously, in what Tether called “agentic finance.”

Tether’s investment comes on the heels of USDt0’s deployment by Everdawn Labs and is built using LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard. Alongside their tokenized Tether gold token, XAUt0, the projects are seen as real-world tests of LayerZero’s interoperability framework.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Tether did not reply to a request for comment.

The stablecoin giant has been using the billions it generates from backing USDT tokens in circulation to make a wide range of investments. These include a majority stake in Latin American agricultural firm Adecoagro (AGRO), a privacy-focused health app, and a stake in video-sharing platform Rumble (RUM).

The company has been aggressively accumulating gold, and earlier this month, itbought a $150 million stake in Gold.com to boost the distribution of tokenized gold.

LayerZero’s ZRO token gained as much as 10% on the news, but quickly reversed, now lower by 3% over the past 24 hours.