Tether Takes Self-Custody to Africa and the GCC With Shiga

Tether and Shiga are planning to launch self-custodial financial products for individuals, businesses and institutions across Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), bringing USD₮, Bitcoin and Tether Gold into user-controlled wallets.

The products, called ENTA and Pulse, will be built using Tether’s open-source Wallet Development Kit (WDK), allowing users and institutions to retain control of their assets, keys and, in some cases, the underlying infrastructure. Tether announced the collaboration on Sept. 28.

The initiative expands a relationship that began with Tether’s strategic investment in Shiga in 2025, and shifts the partnership toward deploying self-custodial products across the Africa-GCC corridor.

ENTA Targets Individuals and Businesses

Shiga’s ENTA product will target individuals, high-net-worth users and businesses.

According to Tether, users will be able to fund their wallets using local currency, U.S. dollars or Bitcoin, then hold and transfer USD₮, Bitcoin and XAU₮, Tether’s gold-backed token.

The products are designed for self-custody, meaning users retain control of their assets rather than placing them in wallets controlled by a third-party platform.

Tether said the initiative comes as currency volatility continues to affect purchasing power across markets served by Shiga. The company also cited World Bank data showing that the average cost of sending remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa reached 8.46% in 2025.

However, neither Tether nor Shiga has announced an ENTA launch date, initial list of countries or fees for users.

The planned product adds to Tether’s recent focus on self-custody. In April, Tether introduced tether.wallet, a self-custodial wallet designed to give users direct control of their digital assets.

Pulse Gives Institutions Deployment Choice

The second product, Pulse, is designed for banks, fintech companies and other institutions.

Rather than offering a standard wallet interface, Shiga plans to tailor Pulse to institutional use cases including payment corridors, treasury operations and settlement flows.

Institutions will have two deployment options. They can use infrastructure managed by Shiga or run the wallet infrastructure within their own environment while retaining control of their keys, data and funds.

Tether said this model is intended to address requirements around data residency, key sovereignty and operational control for larger and regulated institutions.

Shiga CEO Abiola Shogbeni said Pulse will allow institutions to build digital-asset products around the way they move money, rather than adopting a generic wallet model.

No banks or fintech companies have been named as initial Pulse customers, and Tether and Shiga have not disclosed an initial payment corridor or expected transaction volumes.

WDK Provides the Wallet Infrastructure

Both products will use Tether’s Wallet Development Kit, or WDK, an open-source infrastructure layer for building self-custodial wallets.

WDK supports assets including Bitcoin, Lightning, USD₮ and XAU₮ and is designed to allow developers and institutions to build their own wallet products rather than relying on centralized wallet providers.

For Shiga, the integration provides a common infrastructure layer for both its consumer-facing and institutional products.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the collaboration would bring WDK to markets where users and businesses face challenges around protecting savings and moving money across borders.

Shiga’s Nigeria Licence Remains Pending

The rollout also comes as Shiga awaits final approval for a Digital Asset Intermediary licence in Nigeria.

Shiga COO Dami Etomi said the company is in the final stage of the approval process. If granted, the licence would authorize Shiga to provide regulated digital-asset dealing, broking and custody services to individuals and institutions in Nigeria.

Shiga has not said that it currently holds the licence.

Etomi also said Shiga plans to operate ENTA on the same underlying platform offered to institutional clients, giving potential Pulse customers a live example of the infrastructure.

The Tether-Shiga announcement does not yet establish when ENTA or Pulse will launch or which African and GCC markets will receive the products first.