why is tether suddenly funding bitcoin infrastructure when 90%+ of USDT volume lives on tron

tether co-led a $7.5m seed into a startup called utexo back in march. they're building USDT settlement on bitcoin using lightning and RGB. franklin templeton was also in the round which... is not a name you see on bitcoin L2 bets ever

on paper this makes zero sense. tron prints money for tether. ethereum has the DeFi integration. why pour resources into a chain where stablecoins have basically been dead since omni got abandoned

best theories i can come up with:

tron concentration risk. one bad regulatory headline in the wrong jurisdiction and a huge chunk of their volume gets stuck. having a backup rail you actually control is worth a lot

agent payments. if machine-to-machine becomes a real thing the volumes are going to be insane and tron isn't going to handle that. lightning kind of is the only network where the math works at scale, and RGB hides the transaction graph which agents probably need

or they just think bitcoin becomes the long-term settlement layer for dollars and they want to own the rail before someone else does

i lean somewhere between option 1 and 3 but honestly i keep flip flopping on it

real question for the sub though.. if USDT actually starts moving back to bitcoin in any meaningful way, what does that do to tron. it's basically a USDT pipe at this point, that's the whole chain

am i overthinking this or is something actually happening here