Tether has expanded support for USDT and Tether Gold (XAUT) within Opera’s MiniPay wallet, as it hopes to expand into emerging markets where mobile-first access to stable assets is growing quickly.
The latest phase of the partnership allows MiniPay users to send, receive, and hold USDT, and also convert part of their balance into XAUt0, a tokenized gold product issued by Tether.
According to the Feb. 2 announcement, the added functionality is aimed at helping users protect against inflation and local currency volatility.
“By supporting USDT and XAUt0 in MiniPay, we’re helping create tools that make digital assets genuinely useful, whether for sending money, saving in dollars, or protecting value in gold,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said.
MiniPay, a self-custodial wallet built on the Celo blockchain, is embedded in Opera’s mobile browser and is currently available in 60 countries.
According to the companies, the app has seen strong traction in regions like Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, with 50% growth in Q4 2025 alone.
The wallet is live on both Android and iOS, with over 12.6 million activations.
MiniPay first introduced support for USDT in July 2024 during the rollout of MiniPay V2, which introduced Pockets, a drag-and-drop swap feature powered by the Mento protocol, that allowed users to move between cUSD, USDT, and USDC with sub-cent fees.
Since then, MiniPay has seen strong demand for USDT. As of December 2025, the wallet reportedly boasted over 7 million phone-verified USDT accounts.
During that month alone, users processed more than 96 million USDT transfers and made 3.5 million peer-to-peer payments.
Across all integrations, MiniPay handled over $153 million in volume in December, the announcement said.
Opera’s EVP of Mobile, Jørgen Arnesen, said MiniPay has helped bring stablecoins to new users who may be holding or saving in digital dollars for the first time.
Users now also have access to Tether’s tokenized gold product, XAU₮, which surged to an all-time high of $5,600 in late January alongside gains in the spot gold market.
XAUT has a circulating supply of 712,747 tokens and a market cap of $3.4 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Tether, which has been buying significant amounts of gold over the past months, has also recently introduced a new GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin USAt, alongside its other offerings, the Chinese yuan-pegged CHNt and the Mexican peso-linked MXNt.
Opera shares surge on Tether partnership
Opera, which has gradually built out its Web3 features over the past few years, from integrated stablecoin wallets to decentralized app support, saw its shares rise sharply after the announcement.
OPRA rallied roughly 18% after the announcement, before retracing some of the gains and closing the day up 13.5%.
The stock added another 3.55% in after-hours trading.
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