- Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino is spearheading a media push as the firm launches USAT, a U.S.-regulated stablecoin designed to compete with Circle’s USDC.
- Ardoino claims Tether has transformed its reputation by working with nearly 300 law enforcement agencies and freezing billions in suspicious funds.
- Tether now combines huge USDT profits with aggressive diversification into gold, AI, robotics and infrastructure, positioning itself like a private macro player.
- With more than 140 tons of gold and hundreds of millions of users, Ardoino frames Tether as a driver of global financial inclusion in an uncertain, increasingly multipolar world.
Over the last few days, anyone following digital-asset headlines will have spotted an unusually visible presence from Paolo Ardoino, the chief executive of Tether. After years of keeping a relatively low profile in mainstream U.S. media, the face of the world’s largest stablecoin issuer has embarked on a concentrated press tour, talking to outlets like Fortune, Bloomberg, Reuters and TechCrunch about where the company is heading next.
The renewed visibility is not accidental. Tether has just rolled out USAT, a U.S.-regulated stablecoin launched via Anchorage Digital Bank, designed to sit firmly inside Washington’s new regulatory perimeter and go head‑to‑head with Circle’s USDC on American turf. The move lands at a moment when traditional heavyweights such as Fidelity, which presented its first regulated stablecoin, along with JPMorgan Chase and PayPal, are racing to offer their own dollar‑linked tokens, turning the once‑niche stablecoin segment into a full‑blown contest among global finance brands.
Tether’s change of posture in the United States
For a long stretch, Ardoino kept his distance from the United States, running Tether from offshore locations while regulators and prosecutors scrutinized the firm. The company was frequently depicted as opaque, hard to audit and potentially riddled with risk. A 2025 feature in The Economist even described its flagship token as a “money launderer’s dream,” crystallizing long‑standing skepticism in policy circles.
In a recent video conversation from Lugano, Switzerland, where Tether maintains an office, Ardoino painted a very different picture. According to him, the days of avoidance are over: Tether is now meeting with White House officials and coordinating with U.S. agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. The CEO says the company has embraced the need to operate transparently in major jurisdictions as it positions USAT as a compliant product designed specifically for the U.S. market, separate from the global USDT token that dominates offshore crypto trading.
USDT itself remains enormous. The token, effectively a blockchain‑based digital dollar not tied to any single bank, has a market capitalization larger than all rival stablecoins combined and hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Ardoino has compared its recent user‑growth curve to early‑stage social networks, arguing that crypto wallets adopting Tether are scaling more like a viral consumer product than a niche financial tool.
Part of the CEO’s narrative centers on the token’s reach in countries dealing with harsh currency devaluations and limited access to basic banking. He often cites examples such as Argentina, where the peso has lost well over 90% of its value against the dollar in five years, and Haiti, where average daily income barely exceeds a dollar. In those environments, he argues, the ability to hold and move dollar‑linked value on a phone can feel less like a speculative play and more like a lifeline.
Ardoino has gone so far as to call Tether’s trajectory the largest financial‑inclusion story in modern history, insisting that crypto tools are onboarding people who had effectively never interacted with formal finance. That framing is central to how he responds to critics who continue to question the company’s risk management and transparency, particularly around reserves and counterparty exposure.
Confronting money‑laundering accusations and working with law enforcement
Media investigations last year revived concerns about whether USDT is a preferred instrument for criminals, highlighting alleged schemes in which Russian money launderers purportedly bridged British drug gangs, hackers and sanctioned oligarchs using Tether, an issue that has led banks to freeze accounts. When confronted with that reporting, Ardoino tends to downplay the specific figures involved, calling them minuscule compared to legitimate, day‑to‑day usage.
He often leans on an analogy: iPhones and Toyotas can be misused by criminals, yet no one suggests banning smartphones or cars because of that. In his view, the correct benchmark is not whether a tool is ever abused, but whether it provides authorities with better ways to detect and mitigate wrongdoing than legacy systems do.
On that front, Ardoino argues that blockchain‑based stablecoins actually give law enforcement more visibility and control than physical cash. Cash pallets can circulate globally with few traces, he notes, whereas USDT transactions leave a public record on chains that can be analyzed. He says Tether has built dedicated teams and workflows to respond when agencies flag addresses linked to fraud, hacking or sanctions evasion.
According to the CEO, the firm now cooperates with close to 300 law‑enforcement entities across more than 60 countries, including U.S. organizations like the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Secret Service. Tether says it can move quickly to lock problematic funds when necessary, providing a level of responsiveness that traditional correspondent‑banking networks can struggle to match.
Ardoino has disclosed that Tether has so far frozen roughly $3.5 billion worth of tokens, claiming that the bulk of those assets belonged to victims of scams or hacks. He points to a high‑profile 2023 case in which the company says it helped block about $225 million connected to an elaborate “pig‑butchering” operation — a type of long‑con scam in which perpetrators build relationships with targets before luring them into fraudulent investments.
Despite this, skepticism persists. Just a few months ago, S&P Global Ratings graded USDT’s stability as weak, citing concerns around the risk profile of Tether’s reserves, which include assets such as Bitcoin. The downgrade provided fresh ammunition to critics who argue that the company’s balance sheet remains too volatile for an asset marketed as cash‑like.
Stress tests, reserves and the Circle rivalry
Ardoino tends to respond to outside ratings with a mix of deflection and historical examples. He has publicly questioned the credibility of S&P, invoking its failure to anticipate the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and has suggested that being labeled “weak” by that particular institution may not be the worst indictment.
Instead, he highlights episodes in which Tether was tested under severe market stress. When the TerraLuna stablecoin ecosystem imploded in 2022, wiping out tens of billions of dollars in a matter of days, hedge funds and traders quickly turned their attention to USDT, betting that it might be next. A wave of redemptions followed, creating a real‑world stress test for the token’s ability to withstand a bank‑run scenario.
Ardoino recounts that during those chaotic weeks, Tether paid out around $7 billion in just 48 hours — about 10% of its reserves at the time — and approximately $20 billion over 20 days, or roughly a quarter of its backing. He frequently contrasts that performance with traditional banks, arguing that few, if any, regulated lenders could absorb a quarter of their deposits leaving in under a month without needing extraordinary support.
He also alludes to competitors that stumbled under pressure, a clear reference to Circle’s USDC briefly losing its one‑to‑one peg with the dollar after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in 2023; Circle has since developed projects such as Arc by Circle. Tether’s communications team is quick to limit the CEO’s commentary on specific rivals, but he has hinted that firms more aligned with Wall Street tend to receive gentler scrutiny from U.S. institutions.
Today, Ardoino says Tether sits on around $30 billion in excess reserves, above and beyond what would be required to redeem every USDT in circulation. Those reserves are custodied in part by Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm run for decades by Howard Lutnick, who later assumed the role of U.S. Commerce Secretary. Lutnick has publicly vouched for Tether’s reserve quality, while Cantor earns management fees on the company’s massive holdings of U.S. Treasurys.
To drive home his case, Ardoino often contrasts Tether’s balance sheet with the fractional‑reserve model of traditional banking. In his telling, banks commonly lend out the vast majority of customer deposits, whereas Tether maintains sufficient liquid assets so that even a complete collapse in the price of Bitcoin would not impair its ability to honor USDT redemptions at par.
Profits, interest and the regulatory fight over yields
Those reserves do more than back tokens; they generate substantial earnings. According to figures cited by Fortune, Tether booked over $15 billion in profit in 2025, with most of that coming from interest income on the assets underpinning its stablecoins. Unlike a savings account at a traditional bank, however, USDT does not currently share that yield with token holders.
When asked whether the firm might consider paying interest directly to users, Ardoino acknowledges that yield is a familiar concept for Americans and Europeans, who are used to deposit products offering some return. But he argues that for Tether’s most active user base — often people in countries battling double‑digit inflation and sharp currency slides — preserving purchasing power takes precedence over earning a few extra points of annual yield.
In his view, someone watching their local currency lose several percentage points of value against the dollar in a matter of days will see far more benefit from simply holding a stable dollar‑linked token than from chasing modest interest. He suggests that in many emerging markets, USDT functions less like a high‑yield savings product and more like a checking account or digital cash balance that can be moved quickly when needed.
There is also a regulatory angle. In Washington, lawmakers are considering the CLARITY Act, proposed legislation that would bar stablecoin issuers from paying interest to token holders. Banking industry groups largely support the measure, arguing it would prevent a destabilizing migration of deposits from regulated banks into on‑chain alternatives offering attractive yields.
For Tether, which has built its model around *not* passing through interest, such a law would essentially ratify business as usual. For competitors that experimented with reward or yield programs as a differentiator, however, a blanket prohibition on interest payments could remove a key selling point as they try to attract customers in the United States.
From stablecoins to gold: building a giant private reserve
Beyond the core stablecoin franchise, Ardoino is steering Tether deep into the precious‑metals market. In a recent Bloomberg interview, he said the firm has been acquiring roughly one to two tons of gold per week, a pace that has made the company one of the largest private holders of the metal worldwide.
According to the CEO, Tether now owns more than 140 tons of gold, valued at around $23-24 billion following the metal’s latest price surge. Much of that hoard supports two objectives: it serves as partial backing for USDT reserves and underpins Tether’s gold‑backed token, XAUT (often referred to as Tether Gold), which represents claims on physical bars held in custody.
XAUT has grown rapidly amid a broad flight into safe‑haven assets, recently climbing into the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. In recent quarters, its percentage growth has outpaced that of USDT itself, reflecting renewed investor interest in gold as prices hit record highs above $5,000 per ounce and, more recently, traded above the $5,200 level.
Ardoino describes the company’s gold strategy in almost monetary‑policy terms. He has said that Tether is “basically becoming one of the biggest gold central banks in the world”, a remark that has fueled debate about how large private actors could influence markets traditionally dominated by sovereign reserve managers. The trend dovetails with a broader de‑dollarization narrative, in which some countries and institutions seek to reduce exclusive reliance on the U.S. currency.
The practicalities of managing that much bullion are non‑trivial. According to Ardoino’s descriptions, Tether’s weekly gold shipments are transported to a high‑security facility in Switzerland that originally functioned as a nuclear bunker. Hidden behind multiple layers of steel doors, the vault has been compared to a movie set, with the CEO joking that it feels like something out of a James Bond production.
As gold has notched a string of new all‑time highs, the value of that bunker inventory has ballooned. Market participants on prediction platforms have increasingly bet that the metal will continue climbing, assigning high odds to price targets well above current levels. That backdrop has helped legitimize XAUT as a vehicle for investors who want tokenized exposure to bullion alongside traditional ETFs and physical bars.
Tether’s gold holdings are not static, though. Ardoino has indicated that the firm will review its rate of accumulation on a quarterly basis, suggesting it could slow purchases if market conditions or internal demand change. A recent attestation report from Italian auditor BDO Italia placed the value of the company’s precious‑metal reserves — overwhelmingly gold — at nearly $13 billion, representing around 7% of the assets backing its stablecoins at that time.
Geopolitics, de‑dollarization and Tether’s positioning
The scale of Tether’s gold stash has inevitably drawn it into wider discussions about the future of the global monetary order. Ardoino has openly speculated that U.S. rivals could launch gold‑denominated alternatives to the dollar, whether in the form of commodity‑backed currencies or tokenized instruments intended for cross‑border trade.
Such possibilities feed into the broader idea of an increasingly multipolar financial system, in which regions like China and blocs of emerging markets work to diversify reserves and settlement mechanisms away from exclusive dependence on the greenback. Central banks around the world — including in Beijing — have been steadily accumulating gold, a trend that predates Tether’s involvement but now finds an echo in the crypto sector.
Traditional finance leaders have also weighed in. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, in a widely cited 2025 letter to shareholders, floated the notion that the U.S. dollar may not remain the dominant global currency indefinitely. He suggested that digital assets like Bitcoin could play a larger role in international finance over time, either alongside or in competition with state‑issued money.
At the same time, few analysts believe the dollar’s entrenched position can be overturned in the short term. The existing dollar‑centric trade and payments architecture is deeply embedded, and no other currency or asset currently matches its combination of liquidity, legal infrastructure and institutional trust. Even countries keen on reducing their reliance on the dollar tend to move cautiously, mindful of the costs of abrupt change.
From Tether’s perspective, this evolving landscape is both an opportunity and a risk. On one hand, stablecoins denominated in dollars and tokens backed by gold give the firm exposure to both sides of the debate: they benefit if the dollar remains central and also if alternative stores of value gain ground. On the other hand, a future U.S. administration could view a privately controlled, globally used dollar token as a strategic vulnerability, potentially leaning on regulators to rein it in.
Ardoino says he is aware of the political cross‑currents. He argues that bringing hundreds of millions of people into the dollar system via Tether’s products should appeal to both major U.S. parties, framing the firm’s role as one of expanding access rather than undermining national interests. Whether policymakers ultimately share that reading remains to be seen.
Expanding into AI, robotics and real‑world infrastructure
While stablecoins and gold sit at the core of Tether’s business, Ardoino has been equally vocal about a new frontier: artificial intelligence and broader technology investments. Around nine months ago, the company unveiled Qvac, a decentralized AI platform that it hopes to deploy directly on consumer devices, particularly smartphones in emerging markets.
The name Qvac is borrowed from “The Last Question,” a classic short story by science‑fiction author Isaac Asimov that explores themes of entropy, intelligence and the far future. For Ardoino, that literary reference underscores his ambition to build AI tools that are widely accessible rather than locked behind paywalls and centralized data centers. He argues that many of the same people who struggled to access basic banking services are now at risk of being excluded from advanced AI as well.
The concept behind Qvac is to allow models to run locally on smartphones, sidestepping the need for costly subscriptions or always‑on connectivity. Ardoino believes that within three to five years, hardware capabilities in regions like Africa and South America will be sufficient for most mainstream AI use cases. In that scenario, a decentralized network of powerful phones could handle tasks ranging from translation to education, with USDT serving as the payment and incentive layer.
This push into AI sits alongside a broader investment program that has drawn comparisons to a private sovereign‑wealth fund. Reports say Tether has committed more than $1 billion to Neura, a German robotics and AI firm, along with roughly $775 million to alternative video platform Rumble. The company has also backed projects in satellites, data centers and even agriculture, building an eclectic portfolio that extends well beyond conventional fintech.
From the outside, these bets can look scattered: stakes in tech infrastructure, social media, land, cattle and even a share of the Juventus football club do not obviously fit into a single, neatly labeled strategy. Ardoino insists there is a unifying idea: Tether’s goal is to become a “stable company” in its own right, anchoring a collection of assets and technologies that can keep the business resilient in a wide range of macro scenarios.
In his telling, agriculture can be modernized and tokenized, gold markets can be re‑wired through blockchain rails, and telecommunications can evolve toward more peer‑to‑peer architectures. USDT and its siblings would sit at the center of that web as the transactional glue, while the company’s diversified holdings would help cushion it against shocks in any single sector. The long‑term ambition, he says, is to build an organization that can endure structural shifts in both finance and technology.
Underpinning all these moves is a simple narrative that Ardoino repeats across interviews: Tether wants to serve people and regions that have historically been overlooked by mainstream finance and technology. That goal manifests in everything from dollar stablecoins for savers in unstable economies to locally run AI for users who cannot afford subscription‑based tools.
Against this backdrop of rapid expansion and experimentation, the company still faces unresolved questions about transparency, governance and systemic risk. Yet for now, it continues to grow, amassing gold, forging ties with law‑enforcement agencies and branching into new technologies, all while its CEO makes the rounds to convince a skeptical world that the once‑shadowy stablecoin giant is evolving into a more conventional — if highly unconventional‑looking — global financial player.
