Tether Co-Founder Reeve Collins Is Reportedly Backing a New Stablecoin Project Called Pi Protocol

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).

Tether co-founder Reeve Collins is now backing a new stablecoin project called Pi Protocol, which will be backed by yield-bearing real-world assets such as bonds, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The stablecoin is expected to launch on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains in the second half of the year.

Pi will reportedly allow industry participants who market the stablecoin to earn the majority of the profits.

The company will mint its USP stablecoin using smart contracts and will reward minters with another token, USI, as yield.

"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, at which point he and his partners sold the company to the operators of the crypto exchange Bitfinex, the report noted.

In January, Tether reported earning $13 billion in profits for 2024, according to a Bloomberg report on Jan. 31.

The stablecoin issuer files quarterly information as part of a third-party attestation by accounting firm BDO, rather than issuing audited financial statements.

Tether also 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.

An executive order issued by President Donald Trump is set to bolster stablecoins and issuers such as Tether and Circle Internet Financial, according to a report in January.

Trump's order aligns stablecoins with the government's efforts to maintain the global supremacy of the dollar and blocks a potential competitor to stablecoins by barring the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

On Monday (Feb. 17), Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong (SCBHK), Animoca Brands and HKT announced that they had agreed to form a joint venture to issue a stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar.

Cedar Money announced on Jan. 30 that it had raised $9.9 million in a seed round to support the growth of its payments software, which uses stablecoins to facilitate cross-border payments between developed and emerging markets.