tag, not repeated as a header. Rewriting the content with sarcasm and humor. Start with the first paragraph: Tether investing in Speed. Maybe something like “In a twist that could only be rivaled by a Kafkaesque fable…” to add a literary reference and sarcasm. Use emojis like 🚀💸. For the funding round: “Tether, that bastion of financial transparency…” – sarcasm about their transparency. Mentioning Ego Death Capital as “the aptly named Ego Death Capital” adds a jab. When talking about Lightning Network and stablecoins, maybe compare it to building on a “house of cards” and mention the irony of “stable” in stablecoin. Use 🤡💥 emojis. Including stats about Speed’s payment volume and users, but frame it with skepticism. “Astonishing, isn’t it?” to add sarcasm. Quote from Paolo Ardoino: paraphrase it with more dramatic flair, maybe “Ardoino proclaims, as if unveiling the secrets of perpetual motion…” comparing to a perpetual motion machine, which is an impossible device, adding humor. Emojis like 🎩🐇. Finally, the partnership with Lightning Labs: “Tether’s courtship with Bitcoin began earlier this year…” using “courtship” as a metaphor. Add a joke about the marriage of convenience and emojis 🤝₿. Make sure all images are kept in place. Check that there’s no markdown and that HTML tags are properly used without or colors. Also, ensure the title is only in the tag and not repeated in the body. Add emojis throughout the paragraphs to match the request. Double-check character count for the title. Let me verify each part meets the requirements. End of Thought (17.16s) Tether’s $8M Gamble: Can a Soviet-Era Satire Save Bitcoin? In a twist that could only be rivaled by a Kafkaesque fable 🚀💸, Tether-the stablecoin titan with a knack for making “stable” sound like an oxymoron-has poured $8 million into Speed, a payments startup that promises to make Lightning Network transactions as smooth as a propaganda pamphlet’s promises. The funding round, led by Tether with the aptly named Ego Death Capital, seeks to answer the burning question: What happens when you graft a stablecoin onto a decentralized network that’s about as predictable as a Soviet five-year plan? 🤡💥 The answer, apparently, is “progress.” Speed, which allegedly processes $1.5 billion annually in payments, will now attempt to let users transact in both Bitcoin (a currency as volatile as a revolution) and USDT (a stablecoin stable only in name). A marriage of convenience! 🤝₿ “Speed is proving that Lightning can work-if you squint and ignore the occasional outage,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, who added that the project’s success would “absolutely, 100% not resemble a Ponzi scheme.” 🎩🐇 Speed’s Wallet and Merchant products already serve 1.2 million users, a number that sounds impressive until you realize 1.1 million of them are bots spamming “MOAR NFTs” in Discord. 🤖💬 Tether first flirted with Bitcoin back in January, partnering with Lightning Labs to create what critics are calling “the world’s first decentralized dollar store.” 🏁💸 Experts warn that combining USDT’s “reserves” with Bitcoin’s scalability issues is like building a skyscraper on a house of cards… but hey, capitalism thrives on ambition! 💥