Bitfinex Securities said Monday it will restart issuing USDt-denominated tokenized bonds for Luxembourg-based securitization fund ALTERNATIVE, with future sales expected to exceed $10 million. The bonds will be issued and settled on the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain, with fundraising, coupon payments and principal repayments executed fully onchain.
The relaunch follows four prior tokenized bond issuances since 2023 totaling $6.2 million, three of which have matured and been fully repaid. Across those offerings, investors received 20 onchain coupon payments worth more than $1.1 million by the completion of their first full tokenized bond cycle in 2025. The securities provide exposure to emerging-market private credit, financing small and medium-sized businesses and women-led enterprises.
Bitfinex Securities, which holds licenses in the Astana International Financial Centre in Kazakhstan and in El Salvador, handles issuance, listing and secondary trading for the program. Tether’s Hadron platform supports token management. The platform said it now lists roughly $250 million in regulated tokenized securities.
Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex, told Cointelegraph buyers have mainly been high-net-worth crypto investors and crypto-focused institutions from Europe and Asia seeking yield on their USDt (USDT) holdings. The tokenized bonds run alongside the issuer’s conventional monthly bond program, typically carry an 11-month duration, and are recorded on the Liquid Network with key settlement details shielded by the chain’s confidential transaction features.
“There’s been a lot of discussion this year around yield-generating stablecoins. This product offers a solution with an easy, regulated and established vehicle for earning yield on USDt balances,” Knutson said.
Debate over stablecoin yield intensifies
The relaunch comes amid ongoing debate over whether stablecoins should be allowed to earn yield and how such products should be regulated in the United States. With the passage of the US GENIUS Act in July 2025, stablecoin issuers were barred from paying yield directly, but the law did not explicitly prohibit third parties from offering returns through separate products. That gap has allowed exchanges and other third-party platforms to structure securities or lending instruments that deliver yield in stablecoins without the issuer itself distributing interest.
Banks have warned that high-yielding stablecoin products could draw deposits away from the traditional financial system. In January, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan warned interest-bearing stablecoins could drain as much as $6 trillion in deposits from US banks, arguing large-scale migration into digital dollar products could reduce lending capacity and increase funding costs.
The issue has become one of the most contentious in debates over the CLARITY Act, proposed US legislation to establish a broader regulatory framework for digital assets. On Jan. 14, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong withdrew his support for the bill, citing stablecoin yield as a key sticking point. Still, some lawmakers remain optimistic: on Feb. 18, US Senator Bernie Moreno said he hopes Congress can advance market-structure legislation by April, speaking at Mar-a-Lago; Armstrong, who joined Moreno in the interview, said he believes a “win-win-win” outcome is possible.
Prediction market data from Polymarket currently assigns about a 70% probability that the Clarity Act will be signed into law in 2026.
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