Digital finance is evolving, from institutional stablecoin adoption to powerful new DeFi protocols. And as this diverse ecosystem expands, there is a clear, growing need for more composability – the ability for any token, dApp, or protocol to interact with one another. The widespread adoption of token standards like ERC-20 have improved composability within single-network ecosystems. But the minute users go cross-chain, things start to break down.

This is because token standards establish how tokens should behave on a specific chain, but don’t define how liquidity is shared across multiple chains. In order for assets to move freely and remain functionally equivalent across networks, you need an omnichain liquidity standard like USDT0.

Token standards define how tokens behave on a specific chain, from how they store balances to how they interact with other smart contracts. Different tokens that use the same token standard can plug into smart contracts, wallets, and protocols that support their token standard. So when a stablecoin issuer deploys USDT on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Solana, each instance is ERC-20 compliant even though they all run on separate token contracts.

This is great for local composability, but falls short in an increasingly multichain world. Relying solely on traditional token standards when operating across chains results in:

• Token Duplication: Even with the same standard, each chain uses a separate contract, creating disconnected versions of the same asset.

• No Shared Liquidity: Different versions of the “same” tokens on different chains can't share liquidity or interact natively, forcing users into bridges or wrappers.

• State Fragmentation: Most tokens do not share the same state updates across chains, disrupting interoperability and increasing integration overhead.

As a result, you can have dozens of ERC-20 contracts that conform to the same interface, but involve different trust models, pricing mechanisms, and other hidden complexities. This is the core limitation of token standards in a multichain world: their form of composability helps internally unite individual networks, but not the entire onchain ecosystem.

Liquidity standards govern how onchain assets are issued, managed, and moved across chains. In other words, liquidity standards define what a token means globally, ensuring full composability and seamless across different onchain environments.

This is the model USDT0 is championing. Rather than deploying new token contracts for USDT on each chain, USDT0 establishes a single stablecoin reserve and uses LayerZero’s OFT to make that liquidity natively accessible anywhere. As a result, builders and users benefit from:

Here’s how it works:

• One Token, One Reserve: A single canonical contract and backing, accessible from any supported chain.

• Shared Liquidity Everywhere: All chains interact with the same supply, enabling deep, unified liquidity.

• Consistent Logic and Security: Transfers follow a common mint-and-burn model with verifiable proofs, not custom wrappers or bridges.

Without an omnichain liquidity standard like USDT0, builders and users are just juggling multiple copies of the “same” token, and trusting multiple protocols to keep track.

Token standards have played a critical role in the growth of onchain finance. On top of enabling thousands of tokens, dApps, and protocols to operate more smoothly, these standards are key to advances in account abstraction and programmable utility. But today’s multichain world demands more. We need new standards that enable seamless asset transfers and usage across multiple environments without fragmentation or added trust assumptions.

USDT0 delivers this, with an omnichain liquidity standard for USDT that unlocks true capital efficiency. In a world that’s moving toward modular appchains, sidechains, and hyper-parallelized execution environments, the need for portable, programmable liquidity will only grow. Stablecoins will need to be as interoperable as the networks they move across, and USDT0 is making this happen.