Utexo, a company developing Bitcoin-native yield and payment infrastructure through the RGB protocol, announced the appointment of Federico Tenga to its advisory board. Tenga, a leading authority on RGB and a key architect behind its development, currently serves as R&D Strategist within the Bitfinex and Tether ecosystem, where he leads development of the RGB protocol implementation, the RGB Lightning node, and critical developer tooling for Bitcoin-based assets.
His appointment strengthens Utexo's strategic alignment with Tether, which co-led the company's $7.5 million seed round. Tenga's role within the Bitfinex and Tether ecosystem creates a direct technical connection between Utexo and the teams advancing USDT's integration on Bitcoin via RGB. "Federico is one of the people building the RGB ecosystem at the protocol level," said Viktor Ihnatiuk, CEO of Utexo. "His decision to join Utexo's advisory board reinforces how closely aligned we are with the future direction of Bitcoin."
Tenga leads the Bitfinex team developing key components, including the RGB Lightning node and Iris Wallet, a mobile application recognized as a user-friendly interface for interacting with RGB-based assets. His team also created rgb-lib, a widely adopted open-source Rust library that simplifies development on RGB. This tooling supports the broader ecosystem Utexo operates within.
"Utexo represents one of the most compelling real-world implementations of RGB today," said Tenga. "The team is focused on solving payment and liquidity challenges using Bitcoin as the base layer. The opportunity to help shape how stablecoins operate natively on Bitcoin at both the protocol and application level is compelling."
Prior to his current role, Tenga co-founded Chainside, an Italian Bitcoin payment processor that enabled merchants to accept Bitcoin, including through a partnership with itTaxi, Italy's largest taxi network. He also contributed to blockchain policy as a member of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development's national blockchain task force.
Tenga's involvement provides Utexo with direct visibility into the evolution of RGB, including emerging standards, performance improvements, and developer tooling. With Tenga joining its advisory board, Utexo continues to expand its technical leadership across Bitcoin, stablecoins, and financial infrastructure.
