Tether and Nairobi Exchange to Explore Tokenized Securities

Tether signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nairobi Securities Exchange on Tuesday to study tokenized securities, blockchain-based market infrastructure and the possible use of USDT for settlement. The agreement includes plans to assess Tether’s Hadron tokenization platform for issuing and trading tokenized securities and to provide digital asset education for market participants.

Under the memorandum, the parties will evaluate market infrastructure built on distributed ledger technology, examine instant settlement mechanisms and consider how tokenized real-world assets could be listed and traded on the exchange. The review will cover technical, operational and compliance requirements needed to pilot issuance and secondary-market trading of tokenized securities.

The memorandum states any use of USDT as a settlement layer would proceed only where permitted under Kenyan law. The Nairobi Securities Exchange and Tether must establish legal permissions, custody arrangements, transaction finality standards and anti-money-laundering controls before any pilot trades or settlements occur.

The agreement calls for further technical studies and education efforts aimed at issuers, brokers and investors. Tether proposed using its Hadron platform to manage token issuance and lifecycle processes while both organizations assess integration points with existing market systems.

Onchain tracking data estimates the value of tokenized real-world assets at about $36.8 billion, excluding stablecoins. The same tracking also counts nearly $298 billion in stablecoins. USDT has a market capitalization of roughly $184 billion and is the largest stablecoin by that measure.

The memorandum frames the partnership as an exploratory program. Any pilot or production deployment would follow regulatory review and completion of required operational testing.