Let’s not pretend Tether hasn’t been here before.

Disbelief has been its shadow since day one. From Bitfinex leaks to offshore whispers to last year’s Twitter crusades, the chorus has always been the same: “They must be hiding something.” https://x.com/Bitfinexed has been screaming this since 2017 LMAO.

But what happens when the arrows come from above?

Last week, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether’s stability rating on USDT to “weak.” Not shaky. Not risky. Weak. This wasn’t a fringe research outfit, a far cry from a salty paid FUD influencer on a thread spree. This was a suit-and-tie ratings agency saying, in more words than necessary “we’re not sure this thing can hold under pressure.”

Their logic? Simple. Too much Bitcoin, not enough cushion. According to S&P’s breakdown, BTC now makes up roughly 5.6% of USDT’s reserves. That’s a higher share than Tether’s own overcollateralization margin, which clocks in around 3.9%. So, if Bitcoin drops hard(er) again, Tether’s backing risks falling below the threshold. Add gold, corporate bonds, and secured loans into the mix, and they say you’ve got a reserve stack that’s looking less like a stable base and more like a leveraged bet.

And that’s what spooked them.

“A drop in Bitcoin’s value combined with a decline in value of other high-risk assets could therefore reduce coverage by reserves and lead to USDT being undercollateralized,” S&P wrote.

But here’s the twist. Tether disagreed, and not quietly. Their response was immediate and uncompromising:

“Legacy framework. Doesn’t understand digitally native money. Ignores actual data. Still haven’t refused a single redemption.”

Seems like they are following the Roy Cohn playbook of ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK.

It was the sort of rebuttal you’d expect from a company that’s been punched in the face by regulators, media, and rivals for the better part of a decade and is still standing. They’ve leaned into their outlaw status. And now, they wear it like armor.

So, is the downgrade a big deal?

Depends on who you ask.

To crypto-native traders? Probably not. They’ve seen bigger scares. Tether depegged in 2022, briefly, and came back stronger. In many corners of the market, especially outside the U.S., it’s trusted more than any bank, and way more than Circle.

But to institutions? Different story. HSBC, in a December report, called S&P’s downgrade a “fresh reminder” of depegging risk. The bank suggested that institutions, particularly the risk-averse kind, are likely to gravitate toward stablecoins with higher-rated reserves and stricter disclosures. And not just stablecoins, but tokenized deposits altogether.

In other words: Tether remains king among crypto users, but the world it’s trying to expand into may have just narrowed.

HSBC even threw Circle a bone:

“USDC illustrates the type of positioning that could benefit if ratings and regulations become more central to stablecoin selection.”

Circle’s suits may be slow, but they’ve been playing the long game. The game of compliance, licenses, and friendly visits to Capitol Hill. And when rates drop, that positioning could matter even if it hasn’t helped them grow.

On a short but very relevant sidenote, let’s not forget that HSBC has been accused of money‑laundering for drug cartels and sanctioned regimes, facilitating massive illicit cash flows. It’s admitted to clearing hundreds of millions tied to cartel networks, paid the largest fine in banking history for AML failures, then quietly kept clearing questionable flows around the world. Its Swiss arm boasted offshore accounts for thousands of global clients, laundering hidden wealth. And just last year, regulators continued probing new suspicious activity at its private banking branches. That’s the company taking moral high-ground shots at a stablecoin issuer.

Meanwhile… Gold

If S&P raised eyebrows, the Financial Times made jaws clench. A November piece detailed Tether’s recent gold buying spree and the scale is no joke. Based on September attestations, Tether reportedly holds 116 tonnes of physical gold. That’s more than most small central banks.

And it’s not just sitting in the vault. According to Jefferies, a U.S.-based investment bank and financial services firm, Tether’s gold buys made up almost 2% of global demand last quarter and nearly 12% of all central bank purchases.

Why?

No one knows for sure. Ardoino has hinted that gold is “natural bitcoin.” Maybe it’s a reserve diversification play. Maybe it’s a prelude to USAT, the Genius Act–compliant dollar-backed stablecoin coming to the U.S. market. (Which, ironically, won’t even allow gold in its backing due to compliance limits.)

Or maybe, just maybe it’s a different kind of bet: one on tokenized physical gold becoming the next rail for value transfer. XAUt, Tether’s gold-backed token, has seen issuance double since summer. But let’s not get carried away, that’s from a relatively low base.

Still, the buys are happening. And they’re big enough to matter. At least in the short-term.

FT’s takeaway was dry but pointed:

“All that’s needed now is to convince risk-averse investors that their fears are best expressed through buying blockchain tokens from a privately owned, El Salvador–licensed crypto firm that says it has more than 100 unaudited tonnes of gold bars in an unidentified warehouse somewhere in Switzerland.”

A dig, sure. But not a lie?

The Real Question: Why Now?

The sudden surge in USDT issuance (another $1B in November), the gold stack, and the launch of USAT are obviously coordinated.

Is Tether preparing for something?

Some think it’s a hedge against U.S. regulatory pressure. By offering a compliant version (USAT), they can continue the offshore playbook with USDT while showing regulators they’re capable of “playing nice.” Same stablecoin DNA but just with different passports.

But others, particularly critics, think it’s a sign that the original model might be running out of road. That holding bonds, gold, and Bitcoin while fielding redemption requests isn’t sustainable forever. Especially with mainstream finance circling and sovereigns waking up.

Either way, it’s not solvency that’s being questioned anymore, it’s more a matter of direction (and re-allocation)

Tether’s Response? On (builder) Brand

Ardoino didn’t mince words. After the S&P downgrade, he tweeted:

“We wear your loathing with pride.”

They’re not trying to win popularity contests, never have really. They don’t court the VC class. They don’t spend millions on lobbying (they might actually). They’ve been called opaque, unregulated, borderline rogue. And yet? They’ve never once broken their peg beyond a temporary blip. Never once frozen redemptions for verified clients. Never been hacked. Never shut down.

And oddly, I guess it’s their defiance that some users trust. In parts of the world where access to banking is unreliable, Tether is the financial system. Their willingness to operate outside the polite rules of capital is the feature that others claim is a bug.

Why Being a Tether Truther Is Net Negative for Your Life

There’s a difference between being systemically important and systemically accepted.

Tether is the former. Whether you like it or not, USDT props up massive swaths of the crypto economy. It’s in trading pairs, DeFi pools, remittance corridors, and OTC desks from Istanbul to Jakarta.

But the latter being accepted by institutions, regulators, sovereign frameworks, is still very much in play.

S&P’s downgrade will obviously not stop traders from using USDT. But it may temporarily cap how far Tether can extend its empire. It may slow adoption in markets where perception, regulation, and checkbox compliance matter more than uptime.

That’s why narrative is the real war.

And for Tether, it’s always been a fight to control the story before someone else does.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

Let’s not pretend this came out of nowhere.

For months, the writing was on the wall. U.S. lawmakers were circling. The GENIUS Act was inching closer. Circle was pivoting into full compliance cosplay. And Paolo? He was telegraphing the move in broad daylight.

So now it’s official. Tether is launching a U.S.-regulated stablecoin: USA₮. Full Boomer Mode, complete with a handpicked CEO (Bo Hines), a Cantor Fitzgerald custody deal, and a press release so patriotic it could’ve been drafted on Capitol Hill.

But if you’ve been reading The Stable Wars, you already knew this was coming.

I laid it out back in May and March. A bifurcation play; ne offshore token for the trenches (USDT), one sanitized version for Washington’s dinner table (USAT). Tether has been reading the room and front-running regulation with a structure no one can kill.

Let’s unpack it.

The Two-Tether Strategy Is Now Official

There’s now a clean split:

• USDT stays offshore. Dirty, liquid, everywhere. For traders, OTC desks, and people with real (hyper)inflation problems

• USA₮ becomes the compliant cousin. Fully regulated under the GENIUS Act, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, backed by U.S. Treasuries, and wrapped in Bo Hines’s Yale-colored patagonia shirt

It’s the same dollar but with different trade-offs; and different masters.

If you’re a U.S. exchange or a bank looking to tokenize payments and payroll, USA₮ gives you the checkbox you need. If you’re a Turkish importer or Nigerian freelancer, USDT is still your best bet.

Circle Just Lost Its Monopoly on Clean Money

For years, Circle’s value prop was: “We’re the compliant one.” That moat just got torched. Tether just replicated Circle’s playbook includign but not limited to federal compliance, institutional rails, transparent reserves…….and they added a few tricks Circle can’t match:

• Tether’s reach is 10x wider

• $13B in 2024. Circle is nowhere near in the same league

• Tether doesn’t need a glossy rebrand to sound global. It already is

If USAT gets traction with banks and payment partners, Circle’s “clean and compliant” brand edge vanishes. And if it doesn’t? Tether still controls the dominant token across emerging markets. Either way, Circle will now start playing defense.

USAT Is a Trojan Horse for Dollar Dominance

If you look past the compliance fluff, USAT is how Tether gets inside the U.S. perimeter without giving up the war outside it.

You want dollars? We’ve got two flavors:

• Frictionless (USDT)

• Regulated (USAT)

Pick one or use both. Either way, the dollar wins. The real brilliance here is that USAT doesn’t replace USDT. It absorbs U.S. compliance pressure while letting USDT continue being the grease for every non-sanctioned dollar transaction on earth.

Tether isn’t just defending its turf. It’s expanding the map.

Don’t Let the Stars & Stripes Fool You

The Bo Hines appointment? The Cantor connection? The Hadron buzzwords? It’s all signal. But don’t mistake the wrapping for the product.

Tether is still Tether. This is a company that prints dollars faster than some central banks, owns more U.S. Treasuries than Australia, and runs one of the most profitable businesses in fintech history. I imagine UAST was their most stressful build yet; not to appease regulators, but to box out competitors.

The Gameboard Has Changed. Again.

The stablecoin war just got a new lane and a new weapon. Circle’s vision of owning the rails through compliance got countered by Tether by owning the network and offering compliant access as a product, not a sacrifice.

USAT is the opt-in version of legitimacy. Not everyone needs it. But now it exists. And it’s backed by the same behemoth that built USDT into a $169B global monster.

Which brings us here:

The Future Is Fragmented.

There won’t be one winner. There will be layers.

• Institutions will use USAT

• Emerging markets will cling to USDT

• Circle will scream about “trust”

• Politicians will keep pretending they understand

But the real story?

Tether just made the U.S. dollar even harder to kill.

Receipts

• My original article from May predicting this: What the Genius Act Could Mean for Tether

• My March piece outlining the bifurcation path: What Happens if the U.S. Forces All Dollar Stablecoins to Be Issued Domestically

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

Circle just announced their latest brainchild: Arc, a new Layer 1 blockchain built for “stablecoin finance.”

Here’s what they want you to believe: Arc is the missing infrastructure for the future of finance. It comes with sub-second finality, dollar-denominated gas fees, privacy options for enterprises, native USDC support, and integration with Circle’s full stack.

Here’s what they’re not saying: This is a desperate attempt to avoid irrelevance.

Circle is a company that builds for compliance officers, brand consultants, and whatever banking partner they’re trying to impress that week. That’s fine, but don’t confuse it with building the kind of infrastructure that actually survives onchain and is meant for users.

When rates drop; and they will, what’s left of Circle’s entire revenue model? They don’t have the reach. They don’t have the trust of actual crypto users. They’ve spent more time lobbying Congress than shipping anything users actually want.

Arc isn’t here to serve users. It’s here to make Circle more palatable to public markets. It’s a brochure chain. A proof-of-concept built for boardrooms.

Contrast that with Tether, a company that everyone loves to hate, yet has managed to embed itself in real-world markets everywhere, from Nigeria to Argentina to Turkey to Ukraine. Tether sometimes is a little messy. It’s definitely not always polite. But it works and it’s used by the world; it’s why I call it “The People’s Project”. It moves value at the edges of the global financial system where banks fail, where regulators waffle, and where people still need dollars.

You can criticize their audits. But you can’t say they don’t have product-market fit.

Arc might impress a few institutions or analysts who have just discovered MetaMask in the last year. But it won’t win the stablecoin war.

Because the war isn’t about who can write the most compliant whitepaper. It’s about who people actually trust when the banks are closed, when inflation bites, and when you need dollars fast.

And so far, Circle hasn’t shown up to that fight. Not once.

Breaking down the litepaper: what’s solid, what’s squishy

1. “Decentralization,” redefined

Arc’s validators are permissioned institutions. The paper argues this is a new kind of decentralization; spread across big, global entities. In practice, that’s a country club, not open membership. It may fit bank policy and compliance, but it concentrates gatekeeping and turns validators into policy levers.

2. The speed numbers leave out the hard part

Those fancy TPS/latency charts exclude EVM execution. Consensus-only latencies are always pretty; real apps pay for execution, storage, gas auctions, and integration. Arc will still be fast, but the headline claims aren’t end-to-end. The paper says this quite plainly actually.

3. Privacy is a promise, not a feature (yet)

“Confidential transfers” start by hiding amounts, not addresses. Auditors get view keys and the compute trust sits on TEEs, which moves trust to hardware vendors and enclave supply chains. ZK/MPC/FHE come “later.” If you need production-grade private finance on day one, this isn’t that. But thanks for the roadmap.

4. MEV mitigation is also a promise

The paper splits MEV into good (arbitrage keeps stablecoin FX tight) and bad (sandwich/front-run at the till). Mitigations, encrypted mempools, batch processing, and multi-proposers are planned, but not live. Thanks for the roadmap.

5. Fees fund an Arc Treasury

Fees are deposited into an on-chain Arc Treasury at launch. Who steers it? Under what policy? With a permissioned validator set selected by institutions, rent collection and rule-making sit closely together. You could argue that users inherit the policy risk. But time will tell ofcourse.

6. “Open” rails with a house currency

USDC as gas makes accounting clean and UX familiar for CFOs; it also anchors the chain to Circle’s instruments and controls. Yes, a paymaster can accept other stablecoins, but the native cash register is USDC.

7. Cross-chain as a distribution moat

Arc’s “burn-here, mint-there” pitch leans on CCTP which is ofcourse efficient for USDC. The paper says they aim to extend utility to other stablecoins, but the fast path is built around Circle’s mint/burn flow. Liquidity gravity will follow the shortest path.

8. The big reveal

This line from the architecture section is the tell: “a permissioned set of validators… institutional-grade… tailored for regulated financial applications.” That’s a bank-grade chain Circle can govern with big-name partners. It’s not built to be ownerless; it’s built to be acceptable to large institutions and regulators, on Circle’s terms.

So where does this leave Tether?

Tether already won distribution and liquidity where it counts: offshore venues, OTC desks, and dollar-hungry markets outside neat compliance boxes. It’s chain-agnostic and plugged into the places people actually move value.

Circle builds for boards and regulators; Tether is used by the street.

Who should pick what?

Pick Arc if you need a named counterparty, bank-grade audit trails, dollar-denominated fees, opt-in disclosure with view keys, vendor support, and a curated validator set your risk team can underwrite. You’re buying assurances and a change process that sits with Circle and partners.

Pick USDT on open rails if you need reach across CEX/P2P/OTC, instant settlement on many chains, balls deep liquidity in dollar-hungry markets, and minimal friction for counterparties outside U.S. policy boxes. You’re buying distribution and speed, and you accept ongoing debates about disclosure and uneven policy treatment by region.

These are different buyers and different jobs. Arc is for regulated flow inside the fence. USDT moves dollars in the open. Both can do well. One will win.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen.

After a short summer break, I’m back; not with a Tether update (for once), but with thoughts sparked by a recent podcast from a16z Crypto. In this episode, General Partners Ali Yahya, Arianna Simpson, and guest Erik Torenberg attempt to “cut through the noise” and ask a timely question: What’s actually working in crypto today?

From stablecoins quietly powering global payments to the emerging convergence of AI and programmable money, the conversation avoids buzzwords and gets to the core of how crypto is gaining real traction. It’s a refreshing listen, especially at a time when headlines tend to obscure more than they reveal.

Stablecoins Are Quietly Winning (supposedly)

One theme the podcast zeroes in on is stablecoins. Ali Yahya calls them “the clearest real-world use case in crypto today.” And it’s hard to argue with that. With over $16 trillion in on-chain stablecoin volume annually, and companies like Stripe and SpaceX now paying salaries or vendors with stablecoins, it’s clear we’re past the experimentation phase.

And yet, the market still underestimates how disruptive stablecoins are to legacy finance. We’re not just talking about saving on wire fees. We’re talking about rewiring how money moves; from remittances to payroll, from emerging markets to US startups.

Arianna Simpson adds nuance here: most people still think of stablecoins as crypto-native instruments, but their real utility comes when they escape the crypto sandbox. That’s already happening across Asia, LATAM, and parts of Africa. In that light, regulatory clarity, especially from the U.S., will act more like a volume unlock than a risk suppressor.

Who Gets to Build Money?

One of the most powerful ideas from the episode comes when Erik Torenberg reframes the question:

“Stablecoins aren’t just eating payments. They’re changing who gets to build money.”

This flips the lens completely. The fight isn’t just over better rails; it’s over monetary agency. Until now, only sovereigns and banks could issue money. With stablecoins, the ability to issue and scale programmable value flows becomes available to a much broader set of actors.

That makes this more than a fintech upgrade. It’s an economic power shift.

Solana vs Ethereum, Beyond the $HYPE

The episode doesn’t sidestep the smart contract wars either. Ali makes the point that Solana’s performance edge…..especially in payments…..gives it serious credibility. The fact that Visa uses Solana as part of its stablecoin pilot is no small deal. However, if you have been in the space for at least two cycles you will understand that “partnerships” hodl little true value….I digress.

At the same time, Ethereum’s network effects, developer tooling, and Layer 2 ecosystem still offer the deepest bench. The market may bifurcate: Ethereum for programmable apps, Solana for fast money movement. That’s okay. What matters is use-case fit, not maximalism.

AI x Crypto: Still Early, But Inevitable

Toward the end, the discussion shifts to the intersection of AI and crypto. Arianna rightly cautions against vague hype, but Ali makes a smart point: in a world of agentic AI, you need programmable money. If AI agents start managing tasks, coordinating resources, or even negotiating contracts, they’ll need a native value layer.

Crypto is that layer.

Stablecoins give AI something to spend.

Smart contracts give it rules.

Open protocols give it autonomy.

This intersection is early, but it’s logically aligned.

Balaji has spoken about this intensively…..

Misconceptions, Regulation, and What Actually Matters

The podcast closes by dismantling a few persistent myths: that crypto is just about trading, that regulation kills innovation, that no one’s building anything real. In truth, progress has been quiet but foundational.

As Erik notes, it’s not that crypto hasn’t delivered. It’s that the framing was wrong. We expected Wall Street disruption. What we’re getting is financial plumbing that works better across the world.

And that’s supposedly more profound.

Sometimes the crypto16z Kool-Aid is worth Drinking

In a space that often rewards spectacle over substance, this podcast was a grounded and nuanced reset. It reminds us that real crypto adoption isn’t about token prices. It’s about better experiences. Faster payments. New trust layers.

And stablecoins, more than anything else, are at the heart of it.

Listen to/ watch the full episode: a16z podcast – What’s Actually Working in Crypto Today

Kind regards,

Baitman

People love to say Tether will be the most profitable bank in the world. They see a chart: $13 billion in profit, 100 employees. They compare it to JPMorgan with 300,000 employees and think, “Look at that margin!”

It’s a fun brag. But what does it really mean?

What Tether Is (and Isn’t)

Tether does not lend your money. It does not run branches. It does not insure deposits. It sits on a pile of short-term U.S. debt and spins off interest. It mints tokens so people anywhere can move dollars fast. That’s it.

Banks do a lot more. They take deposits, lend long, manage risk, hold capital buffers. That’s why they hire armies of people and get bailed out when they mess up. Tether skips all that. No lending, no retail, no local branches. Just code and reserves.

So, is it really fair to call it “more profitable than a bank”? Kind of. But it’s like comparing a lean payment network to a full-service financial giant. One is an engine. The other is an empire. Different risk, different responsibilities.

Why It Works Now

Tether works because rates are high and costs are low. It doesn’t spend on heavy compliance in every country. It doesn’t run a giant office footprint. It does one job well: give the market dollars when normal banks or regulators make that hard.

In Nigeria, Lebanon, and Argentina, people want dollars. Their local banks fail them. Tether fills the gap. For many, this is more about survival than profit.

What Could Break It

A few things keep this machine humming:

• Rates: Tether earns money from short-term Treasuries. If rates fall, so does profit.

• Trust: Users trust Tether holds those assets. If trust fades, people stop using it.

• Rules: If the U.S. or EU cracks down on offshore dollar pipes, Tether might need to spend more on lawyers, audits, licenses. Costs rise. Margins shrink.

• Competition: Circle, PayPal, banks, or big fintechs could match the product, a dollar on a blockchain, but with more trust for big institutions.

Today, they haven’t. That’s why Tether stays huge.

The Real Advantage: Distribution

Forget “most profitable bank.” The real story is that Tether has built a rail for dollars in places where banks, PayPal, or Visa are slow, expensive, or absent.

They have a messy, global, informal network: OTC desks, Telegram groups, local brokers. This is hard to build and harder to shut down. It is also risky. It’s Tether’s moat, but it could vanish if regulators really crack down or if better stablecoins come along.

Penny For Your Thot: Maybe It’s Not About Profit

Here’s a twist: Tether’s job is not to beat banks at profit per employee. Its job is to move dollars where banks can’t or won’t. That’s why 100 people are enough. If rates drop, they’ll make less money but the need for free-flowing dollars doesn’t vanish.

So Tether is a signal: people want dollars with no bank strings attached. That’s the point. Not that it’s a mega-bank, but that people want money without a middleman.

Next time someone posts that Tether is a “top bank,” remember:

• It’s more fragile than it looks

• It has no backup business if yields drop

• It exists because banks fail the people it serves

If banks and regulators fix that, Tether shrinks. If they don’t, Tether stays big. Simple as that.

My Take

Tether is not a bank. It’s a mirror showing how much the dollar is worth outside the formal system. It highlights how flawed that system remains.

That’s why it matters.

Beyond the Meme: What Tether’s Profits Really Mean…. a recap

Tether’s profits are now bigger than Goldman Sachs, and nearly half of JPMorgan’s. They do this with about 100 employees. Compared to a bank with 300,000 staff, that’s wild.

One hot take says Tether is the world’s smallest, leanest mega-bank. Another says it’s proof that crypto is eating finance from the inside.

Both miss something. Tether isn’t just a bank with fewer people. It’s a liquidity engine. It moves dollars where banks often don’t; and where people trust them least. That’s where the profit comes from: sitting on short-term Treasuries and sending dollars around the world 24/7, with no branch manager to say no.

This model is fragile if trust breaks. But Tether’s real edge is that, so far, trust hasn’t broken; not in emerging markets, not in Asia’s OTC desks, not in the billions of dollars moved daily by people who don’t care about crypto Twitter.

So yes, more profit than Goldman. But also: more reach, more local relevance, and more flexibility to go where banks won’t.

The deeper lesson is simple: big profits are a side effect. The core game is owning the rails where real people want dollars.

If you’re watching where the next dollar network is being built, watch Tether. The profits just make the scoreboard easier to read.

This isn’t a Tether article.

I know, I know…..surprising. But today, I’m stepping out of my usual rhythm to dive into a different stablecoin perspective. I recently listened to a16z crypto’s podcast featuring Chris Dixon and Sam Broner, and it laid out one of the more coherent, long-term views I’ve heard in a while. It’s not about memecoins, yield-chasing, or regulatory catfights. It’s about payments, infrastructure, and where the puck is actually going.

I wanted to share some reflections; not because I agree with everything they said, but because this kind of thinking deserves to be unpacked. Let’s break down what stood out, what they’re getting right, and where the gaps still lie.

Stablecoins as Public Infrastructure

Dixon and Broner argue that stablecoins represent a horizontal layer; a new kind of neutral rail for global money movement. Unlike traditional financial systems that rely on layers of intermediaries (banks, processors, clearinghouses), stablecoins can be built on blockchains that anyone can access and build on.

Their thesis is clear: blockchains unlock a global, programmable, interoperable financial layer, like the web, but for money. Not merely about cost savings; more about reimagining how payments, credit, and commerce get stitched together.

But they also call out the paradox: this is the most widely used crypto product, with trillions in volume, and yet it’s the hardest to invest in. Why? Because the margins are compressed, and the product is structurally public-good-ish. It’s infrastructure. Not the kind of business that prints monopoly profits.

That’s part of what makes the stablecoin wars so fascinating. Because multiple players are building a money layer.

Composability Is a Bigger Deal Than You Think

One of the more important ideas the podcast raises, without shouting it, is composability. Stablecoins, as programmable money, allow anyone to plug into a global network of financial primitives: custody, lending, payments, and compliance.

That’s a yuge unlock.

Today, to build a payment app, you need to deal with multiple APIs, licensing, fraud tools, banking partners, FX desks, etc. But with stablecoins and open infrastructure, the startup cost of launching a financial app drops dramatically. You can now focus on the UX, not the plumbing.

As Broner noted, that’s how products like Blackbird (restaurant loyalty meets payments) can emerge. You couldn’t build something like that efficiently 5 years ago.

This is also why stablecoins will quietly reshape e-commerce, tipping, creator payments, streaming pay-per-second, and anything else that was too annoying to implement before.

Regulation as a Catalyst, Not a Constraint

There’s always been a weird dynamic in crypto: people loathe regulation, but regulation is also the very thing that unlocks institutional adoption.

The a16z crew makes it clear that regulation, especially something like the GENIUS Act, tells the banks, the fintechs, the payment service providers that it’s now safe to move. I guess that is a refreshing take….

Once that floodgate opens, stablecoin volumes will take the non-linear path…

They point to how Section 230 helped catalyze the internet, laying a legal foundation for builders to experiment. We could be looking at a similar moment for stablecoins.

Where Value Accrues in a Post-Intermediary World

This is the most important and perhaps most underexplored point in the episode.

If stablecoins eat payments, and intermediaries fade into the background, where does value accrue?

The a16z answer is layered and probably gives you a good insight into what they are (and will be) investing in.

• Infrastructure (wallets, on/off ramps, compliance rails)

• Fintech wrappers that abstract complexity

• Protocol-level service providers (escrow, fraud protection, vaulting)

• And eventually, reputation and identity layers that live natively on-chain

In other words, stablecoins become the foundation, but the real differentiation and business opportunity lie in the services built on top.

Even though they are coming and arguably are already here, you don’t need 100 different stablecoins. You need 100 different use cases built on top of one or two dominant ones.

Where Tether Fits (or Doesn’t)

Now let’s bring it back to my usual beat. Whether or not you agree with the a16z worldview, it does raise the question: where does Tether fit in?

Tether is the undisputed liquidity king. But it doesn’t play by the same game. It’s not pitching U.S. policymakers. It’s not angling for bank partnerships or IPOs. It’s shipping product into markets that most of the crypto elite don’t even think about. Tether after all is “the people’s project”

Definitley recommend listening to the full episode, even if you’re Team Tether. Because the future of stablecoins won’t be winner-take-all. It’ll be layered. Regulated coins for institutional rails. Off-shore liquidity coins for the rest. Localized fintechs wrapping it all in clean UX.

In that world, everyone wins; or at least some do…..

Senator Bill Hagerty’s recent speech was a call to weaponize stablecoins for U.S. economic dominance.

It doesn’t just sound dramatic, it is. Replay his words, and the logic becomes clear: the Genius Act is not about innovation for innovation’s sake (well well well). It’s about giving the U.S. a lever to modernize its payments infrastructure, soak up global demand for Treasuries, and entrench dollar supremacy in a world that’s drifting towards fragmentation.

Quote by quote…..

“This will ensure U.S. dollar dominance. It will advance our position as the reserve currency in the world rather than see the retreat and decline that we might otherwise experience.”

It’s not about Circle, Coinbase, or even crypto as we’ve come to know it. He is talking about architecture and about rebuilding U.S. financial plumbing with instruments that can travel the internet at the speed of content, while still flying the U.S. flag.

“Today it’s an unregulated market… What we’ll do is make certain that everyone knows that stablecoins are backed by U.S. dollars and that those dollars are backed up by cash and short-term U.S. treasuries.”

This is the crux of it: stablecoins, if compliant, become extensions of the Treasury market. Not competitors to banks. Not challengers to the Fed. But demand engines for short-dated debt, giving the U.S. a new distribution channel for dollar-denominated instruments.

Hagerty even points out that by the end of this decade, U.S.-based stablecoin issuers could be the largest holders of Treasuries in the world. That’s a very sober projection based on the compounding demand for programmable dollars.

So What Does This Mean for Tether?

Well, that depends on what kind of role you believe Tether wants to play.

If Tether wants to participate in the U.S. regulated market, then a new entity (USDT2 or some variant) will likely need to emerge. Fully backed by regulated banks, audited reserves, and subject to oversight. In that scenario, Tether becomes indispensable infrastructure.

But there’s also a parallel world. One where Tether continues to dominate outside the U.S. precisely because it is not entangled in U.S. compliance frameworks. A dollar proxy with looser rules, but deeper reach. For millions of users across Asia, Africa, and LATAM, that’s not a bug. It is the feature.

Hagerty, Lummis, and others are setting the stage for a multi-tiered system:

• Compliant, onshore stablecoins that serve Wall Street and state-sanctioned retail access

• Unregulated, offshore stablecoins that do the same thing U.S. dollars always did; circulate as hard money in unstable economies

Tether currently operates as an offshore issuer, dominating global markets with liquidity, speed, and ubiquity. Its reserves already include a massive amount of U.S. Treasuries over $115 billion. But despite that alignment with the dollar, it’s still not U.S.-based, not U.S.-regulated, and not part of the Washington-centric compliance apparatus that GENIUS seems to favor.

And here’s the most revealing line:

“I’d far prefer a benign stablecoin issuer to the CCP or other sovereign nations.”

Hagerty is saying the quiet part out very loud: stablecoins are now a geopolitical lever. One that can be used to counter China’s digital yuan, displace euro-denominated trade zones, and fill vacuum markets with digital dollars that always settle.

Whether you like stablecoins (and their ever-so-eager regulators) or not, this is the game. And if the Genius Act passes, it will make that game official U.S. policy.

• Who gets the early mover advantage?

• Will Circle’s IPO become a moat or a liability?

• Can the onshore model offer yield without getting torpedoed by securities law?

• Will Tether split itself to serve both sides of the regulatory membrane?

In a world where every layer of finance is being redrawn, it’s not enough to be dominant. You have to be adaptable. Tether has survived and thrived through every regulatory wave so far. This next one could define how much of the future it gets to write.

During a Consensus 2025 side event in Toronto, Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand expressed confidence that the Genius Act, a bipartisan stablecoin bil, could be approved by Memorial Day. Congressman French Hill echoed the sentiment, adding that both the stablecoin and crypto market infrastructure bills are being actively aligned for potential presidential approval before the August recess.

The Genius Act, which has undergone multiple revisions, is focused on clearer consumer protections, bankruptcy protections, and stricter oversight of both domestic and foreign stablecoin issuers. It is being created to address institutional and retail use cases, while “minimizing” systemic risk.

So, What’s at Stake for Tether?

Tether is the obvious elephant in the room. Although based offshore and operating outside U.S. jurisdiction, the company’s role in global dollar liquidity is impossible to ignore. As of today, USDT represents the vast majority of stablecoin volume across emerging markets, OTC desks, centralized exchanges, and even remittance corridors.

If the Genius Act passes, the U.S. will have a formal framework for approving and overseeing stablecoins. This means clear conditions for compliance, especially for those issued within U.S. borders. But it also means foreign stablecoin issuers like Tether will be formally categorized, and potentially restricted, in their interaction with U.S.-based platforms, payment channels, and financial institutions. Hence Paolo’s tweet:

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1920553400191643694

In short: the Genius Act may not outlaw USDT, but it will significantly limit its formal use in U.S.-compliant platforms.

Tether’s Options

Tether likely sees this coming. There’s been talk, including from Paolo Ardoino, about launching a fully U.S.-compliant version of USDT, like I predicted in my earlier articles. This could come in the form of a separate, ring-fenced stablecoin (let’s call it USDT2 again) issued under a U.S.-registered entity, backed by fully audited reserves, and meeting every provision the Genius Act might require.

This dual-rail strategy would let Tether maintain its global USDT dominance while carving out a compliant lane for regulated institutions to use in U.S. markets.

Meanwhile, offshore USDT continues to serve the needs of users in Argentina, Nigeria, Turkey, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, where the demand for USD liquidity isn’t waiting on Senate votes.

Regulatory Narrative vs. Ground Reality

One of the most important takeaways from this bill is the emerging bifurcation in the stablecoin market. The Genius Act, if passed, will codify what is "legal" stablecoin behavior in the U.S. But outside its borders, USDT will continue to thrive precisely because of its frictionless nature. Cross-border payments, crypto-native trades, OTC commerce, and even dollar-denominated savings habits have already formed around USDT.

Even with potential restrictions, no other stablecoin comes close to matching Tether's market penetration. Circle’s USDC, despite being based in the U.S., remains highly dependent on compliant infrastructure, which limits its adoption in non-banked or high-inflation regions.

The Genius Act might be successful in creating a well-regulated stablecoin class within U.S. capital markets. But it likely won’t erase the market share Tether has amassed elsewhere.

The Trump Distraction

While Senators Lummis and Gillibrand made a point to decouple the Genius Act from the recent headlines surrounding Trump’s alleged memecoin and airplane-related controversies, there’s no denying the political tension. Senator Gillibrand called some of Trump's actions potentially illegal under the Emoluments Clause and expressed concerns about fraud and corruption.

This added layer of political noise could either delay the bill or force legislators to frame it even more strictly in order to appear above reproach. Ironically, this might create additional pressure to draw clear regulatory lines between sanctioned, U.S.-backed stablecoins and the rest of the market.

A Path Forward

The Genius Act is unlikely to ban Tether. But it will give U.S. regulators a clear framework to define what constitutes a "legal" stablecoin domestically. Possibly resulting in:

• U.S. exchanges being required to delist or ring-fence USDT

• Tighter banking and payment partner requirements

• New compliance obligations for wallets and DeFi platforms that support stablecoins

In the end, Tether’s global strategy will remain intact. The Genius Act will draw a perimeter around what is considered legitimate within the U.S., but it will also sharpen Tether's messaging outside it: that they are still the most liquid, accessible, and flexible dollar proxy on the planet.

And in a world where the average user just wants to hedge against (hyper) inflation, that might matter more than any piece of legislation.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

If you've been around crypto long enough, you learn to filter out the noise. A lot of partnerships are just that….headlines designed to impress investors or stir up some short-lived hype amongst “armies”. But every now and then, something lands with longer-term implications.

That’s what this latest announcement from Tether looks like.

USDT will now be natively deployed on the Kaia blockchain (formerly Klaytn), in collaboration with LINE NEXT. LINE is one of Asia’s largest messaging platforms, with over 170 million monthly active users across Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.

This integration brings USDT into LINE’s Mini Dapp platform and self-custodial wallet, enabling in-app payments, cross-border transactions, and access to DeFi tools; all within an app many users already rely on. In effect, this puts stablecoins into the day-to-day flow of mobile users across Asia. For Tether, this allows them to deepen access in regions where stablecoins are more of a utility than a narrative. And it happens outside the purview of U.S. politics or EU regulatory cycles.

On a personal note, I met Jaesun Han, CEO of Klaytn, during an event at the Web3 Festival in Hong Kong back in April 2024. We spoke about the Kaia strategy, the LINE partnership, and their user base. What stood out was the seriousness with which they approached user distribution and product design. It felt less like a crypto company chasing buzzwords and more like a tech team working toward something durable.

That’s important context for this partnership. Because what we’re seeing with Kaia, LINE, and Tether is a bullish signal of Web2 meeting Web3, not through surface-level integrations, but through native infrastructure alignment. Like a convergence of distribution and utility. Web2 companies like LINE have massive built-in user networks and interface dominance, while Web3 infrastructure like Kaia and USDT brings composability and financial self-custody.

If you’ve ever used WeChat in China, you’ll understand the endgame. WeChat is 1000x more than messaging….it’s payments, banking, shopping, even access to government services. It’s a parallel digital layer woven directly into society. And what’s happening now with LINE and Tether might be an early signal that crypto, finally, is building something similar: user-first, invisible finance, natively embedded into apps that already run people’s lives.

We’ve seen it before, Telegram integrating with the TON ecosystem and acting as a massive distribution funnel for crypto-native products. The difference is: LINE already has regional penetration and digital payments familiarity baked in. So USDT doesn’t feel like a bolt-on feature. You could almost say that it’s a natural extension…

As the stablecoin industry becomes more competitive, more regulated, and more accepted as a serious industry, the companies that win won’t just be the ones with regulatory blessings or deep reserves. They’ll be the ones who understand how to tap into existing user networks; and meet people where they already are.

That’s the best way I can summarize what this Kaia and Tether collaboration reflects.

Yet another reminder that the stablecoin wars won’t just be fought on compliance papers or (Ethereum) block explorers. They’ll be fought but predominantly won through integrations that feel invisible; until they're everywhere.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

“You’re a bright young man. This monkey business is in your blood, under your skin. You’re not getting out, you’re just getting in, you’re only getting started. I’ve every faith in you. And one day in the future it will be you sitting here in my place… telling some young Turk the facts of life.

You’re born, you take shit. Get out in the world, you take more shit. Climb a little higher, take less shit. Until one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere, and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like.

Welcome to the Layer Cake son.” - The Layer Cake (2004)

If you’ve been watching Tether lately, you’ll know exactly why this scene hits different.

They’ve left the era of being “just” a stablecoin issuer far behind. In the past few weeks alone, they’ve announced an open-source AI runtime with integrated crypto payments, hinted at a fully U.S.-compliant stablecoin ready to deploy, and acquired a majority stake in a South American sustainable production firm.

None of these are vanity plays. They're bets, serious ones, on a future where sovereignty, infrastructure, and intelligence converge and IPOs still aren’t needed. And unlike most players in the industry, Tether seems perfectly comfortable building that future while regulators, competitors, and critics remain stuck in limbo.

Tether AI: A Runtime for Intelligence That Doesn’t Phone Home

Paolo Ardoino’s announcement of “Personal Infinite Intelligence,” the flagship product of Tether’s upcoming AI initiative, didn’t come with a flashy trailer or hype-laden promises. What it did come with though was something much more captivating: an open-source, hardware-agnostic AI runtime with no API keys, no central points of failure, and native Bitcoin and USDT payment integration via Tether’s Wallet Development Kit. It’s almost too much to fathom for the n00b mind, aka my mind…..

The implications are massive because in a world where every major AI model is bottlenecked by access gates and corporate surveillance, Tether is apparently and ever so quietly laying the groundwork for something entirely different. AI that can be deployed, monetized, and used peer-to-peer without permission.

If you understand Tether’s broader worldview, it fits. They aren’t fighting OpenAI or Google on their turf. Instead, they are building systems that can survive in jurisdictions, geographies, and scenarios where those players won’t or can’t reach.

Still Thinking Locally: USDT2 and the Potential U.S. Play

While the EU hammers out MiCA and Washington argues about stablecoin frameworks, Tether is preparing to launch a fully U.S.-compliant stablecoin, when and if the regulatory environment allows it. The message between the lines is simple:

“We’re ready. Are you?”

This future stablecoin; let’s call it USDT2, will be backed by U.S.-regulated bank reserves and tailored for institutional adoption. It’s the kind of dual-track strategy, offshore resilience with optional onshore compliance, that Circle has struggled to balance, often caught between chasing regulation and losing global market share. In other words, USDT2 is not a replacement for the current USDT. It’s a rail or hedge that will exist in parallel. One foot in the regulated U.S. system, the other firmly planted in the world that Tether already dominates: fast, fluid, and borderless stablecoin liquidity.

The Art of Buying Dirt: Tether’s Stake in South American Infrastructure

Then there’s the move no one expected: Tether buying a controlling stake in Adecoagro, a major sustainable production firm in South America. Goes without saying that this acquisition is strategic. Owning the base layer of food and energy production gives you more than just a balance sheet asset. You should know by now that fiat rails can be censored and economies shuttered by policy; owning productive land and energy infrastructure is a form of institutional sovereignty.

Combine that with the fact that Tether is already holding nearly $120 billion in U.S. Treasuries, and the picture becomes clear: from exporting dollars via crypto to exporting an entire thesis on economic independence.

What Binds It All?

Well it’s definitely not consensus-seeking. What binds Tether’s growing empire is a consistent logic: build tools that work without permission, in places where permission is hard to come by. From open-source wallets and mining pools to tokenized gold and AI agents that can transact autonomously, the common thread is usability, survivability, and sovereignty. As they publish attestations (not billboards), they wait for the moment that’s right, and then they ship.

Most of the crypto world is waiting for regulators to catch up or give the green light. Tether does not wait. And whether it’s AI, land, or a new class of compliant stablecoins, that buidler mentality is exactly why they’ve quietly become the most strategically positioned company in all of crypto.

You could say they’ve climbed a few rungs higher on the Layer Cake; above the noise, above the optics, and far from the permissioned gates others are still knocking on.

I genuinely believe that Paolo Ardoino is up in the rarefied atmosphere, and has forgotten what shit even looks like

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

The launch of Tether AI is the next signal in a broader thesis. Tether isn’t building products, it’s just adding to a digital sovereign stack; one that increasingly looks unstoppable.

Paolo Ardoino’s announcement of “tether.ai” introduces a new kind of AI runtime: open-source, decentralized, modular, and natively integrated with USDT and Bitcoin payments via Tether’s Wallet Development Kit (WDK).

On paper? It’s an AI platform.

In reality? It’s a statement of intent: Tether wants to win the race for infrastructure; money, messaging, mobility, and now intelligence.

What Is Tether AI?

According to Ardoino, Tether AI’s “Personal Infinite Intelligence” is a:

• Fully open-source AI runtime

• Able to run on any hardware or device

• No API keys, no central point of failure

• Modular and composable by design

• Powered by WDK for native Bitcoin and USDT payments

The aim is to create an “unstoppable peer-to-peer network of billions of AI agents.” That’s not marketing fluff; that’s protocol-level ambition.

More than “just” deploying machine learning tools, tether.ai is about decentralizing intelligence in the same way Bitcoin decentralized trust.

Why It Matters: The Strategic Implications

Tether’s roadmap is starting to make a lot more sense when you zoom out:

• USDT - Dollar liquidity rails

• XAUt - Gold-backed hedge for store-of-value believers

• WDK - Developer stack for wallet infrastructure

• OCEAN - Bitcoin mining decentralization

• Tether Energy - Sustainable compute and power

• Tether AI - Intelligence at the edge, uncensored and peer-to-peer

What binds it all? Sovereignty. Self-custody. Global access. Minimal gatekeeping.

Tether is stitching together a permissionless infrastructure stack. From stablecoins to tokenized gold, from open-source wallets to decentralized mining, and now a modular AI runtime, each component serves the same underlying mission: putting power back into users’ hands.

Sovereignty means owning your money, your data, your identity. Self-custody means no banks, no backdoors, no dependence. Global access means a street vendor in Lagos and a developer in Hanoi are using the same rails. And minimal gatekeeping means no KYC fortress standing between you and basic financial tools.

With Tether AI, they’ve just added another layer of tooling for builders. But this time, it’s not about finance (at first sight).

And it’s another clear differentiator from Circle or Coinbase. Those companies are still trying to get permission. Tether is building parallel systems.

This Is Why They Win

Tether gets memetics. They get latency. They ship fast and often, and they’ve leaned into markets others ignored. Lesson learned for perma fudders talking about MiCAH and the implications for USDT. The EU wants compliant, audit-tracked stablecoins, and that’s fine, for the EU. But Tether didn’t build its empire on regulatory appeasement. It was built by solving problems for real users. Skipping MiCA registration wasn’t a blunder. It was a signal. Europe is not the center of gravity in crypto anymore, and Tether knows it. When you’re the base layer of liquidity for emerging markets, black markets, and frontier economies, Brussels isn’t your top priority.

And btw, this AI runtime may not compete with OpenAI on raw capability (yet), but it doesn’t need to. It competes on access, ethos, and alignment with crypto-native users.

If your AI agent can live anywhere, speak to anyone, swap stablecoins, and run without permission, who needs Silicon Valley?

I’ve followed Tether long enough to know that every launch is part of a longer game. As the usual suspects, they’re building a stack for the unbanked, and the uninvited.

The few…..

Freedom Tech Is Awesome

The idea of AI agents tied to peer-to-peer finance, running across modular runtimes, and deployed anywhere in the world might seem far-fetched. But the idea of a stablecoin becoming the largest issuer of U.S. Treasuries once seemed far-fetched too.

Tether doesn’t play by the rules because it doesn’t need to. Maybe that’s why I like them so much. They play to win. And with tether.ai, they’re now playing on the terrain of intelligence itself.

If you’re betting on freedom tech in the coming decade, you could do worse than follow the team shipping at Tether.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

Gold is pumping. Chaos is rising. And for once, the most interesting gold play isn’t happening behind some velvet curtain at a central bank; it’s happening on-chain.

While governments stockpile physical bullion and pretend everything is under control, millions of people now have an option to hedge with a token: Tether Gold (XAUt). The future of monetary sovereignty will live on your phone, not in a vault.

Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino said it best: “XAUt opens up the digital gold opportunity to the hundreds of millions of people already using USDt. Inevitable.”

And if you zoom out, he is probably right.

Why Gold, Why Now?

The price of gold has surged past $3,460, fueled by a global appetite for safe-haven assets. Trump telling us we would get tired of winning, inflation uncertainty, geopolitical instability, and central bank diversification away from U.S. Treasuries are all driving this move. China, Russia, and many emerging markets are stockpiling gold to hedge against dollar risk.

Gold still seems to be an undeniable monetary infrastructure.

But while sovereign players snap up 12,5 KG bars, retail users have been left out; until now.

What Is Tether Gold (XAUt)?

XAUt is a gold-backed digital asset issued by Tether, pegged to one troy ounce of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults. Each token represents direct ownership of that gold, with full redemption and transparency.

It combines the stability of gold with the portability and transaction ease of a digital asset.

• Fully backed 1:1 with LBMA-approved gold

• Auditable proof of reserves

• Redeemable for physical gold or fiat

• Runs on Ethereum and TRON, with low transfer costs

It’s digital gold, minus the vault access fees, settlement delays, 12.5 kg weight, and jurisdictional headaches.

A Strategic Move: USDt + XAUt = Full-Spectrum Digital Money

With XAUt Tether is no longer “just offering stablecoins, now it’s offering the same sovereign hedging mechanism that central banks use, but to everyday people. Hence Tether is “the people’s project.”

This creates an elegant financial stack:

• USDt for everyday transacting and fiat substitution

• XAUt for long-term preservation of value and macro hedging

In a time of broken banking, politicized monetary systems, and confiscation risks, this combo provides a stellar “sovereign” product suite.

Most people won’t buy an ounce of gold. Most people won’t open a Swiss vault account.

But millions already hold USDT on their phone. And XAUt can now sit alongside it; instantly accessible, borderless, and liquid.

Tokenized gold isn't new. But distribution is everything. And Tether already has the user base, the liquidity, and the rails to push this globally. Apparently the future of gold isn't in vaults. It’s in wallets.

Tether Gold reflects a shift in who gets access to serious financial hedges. Central banks hoard bullion. Now, everyday people can do the same; digitally, instantly, and without needing a vault or permission slip.

Definitely a nice upgrade to the basic financial stack for people long shut out of traditional finance.

While governments move gold behind the scenes, individuals are adding it to their wallets; alongside stablecoins, not instead of them.

This is what monetary parallelism looks like; happening right before your degenerate eyes.

The only question left is: how long until every crypto wallet comes with a digital vault tab?

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

You’ve stacked your sats. You’ve secured your USDT. But now what?

In a world that increasingly demands sovereignty and flexibility, it’s time to stop thinking of Bitcoin and Tether as just assets to hold and start thinking of them as tools to live on.

This article is for those ready to take the next step: from passive crypto holders to active crypto users. Whether you’re a freelancer getting paid in USDT, a nomad ditching or at least diversifying your banks, or someone navigating financial chaos in your home country, this is your playbook.

Let’s talk about how to actually spend, send, and survive on the two most essential assets in crypto.

Who Lives on Crypto Today?

• Remote freelancers in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia use USDT to get paid reliably without suffering through bank fees or unreliable local currencies

• Digital nomads living across borders, using crypto cards and apps to live bank-free

• Small business owners accepting BTC or USDT as payment to protect margins from hyperinflation

• Every day, citizens in Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, and Lebanon store savings in Tether because local banks just can’t be trusted.

People are using crypto to get by, run businesses, and escape broken systems. It’s not hypothetical. It’s happening.

Spend It: Crypto Debit Cards

Let’s start with day-to-day spending.

Many companies now issue crypto debit cards that let you spend your BTC or USDT (or other crypto of choice) at any merchant that accepts Visa or Mastercard. These include:

• Binance Card: Spend USDT, BUSD, or BTC anywhere Visa is accepted. 8% cashback in BNB

• Crypto.com Visa Card: Offers rebates, lounge access, and supports USDT & BTC

• BitPay Card: U.S.-based, supports USDT and BTC, with instant reloads

• Wirex and Nexo cards: Europe-friendly, rewards-focused options

I’m just mentioning these products because they are out there and are the most authoritative. Personally, I do not like Wirex because I have had very bad experiences with customer support. Might have changed since then. Most of these cards convert your crypto to fiat at the time of the transaction, meaning the merchant gets paid in local currency while you live on-chain.

Pay Bills, Rent, and More

If your landlord or utility company isn’t crypto-native (yet), you still have options.

• Bitrefill: Buy gift cards for Airbnb, Amazon, Uber, groceries, even phone top-ups with BTC or USDT. Available in dozens of countries

• Coinsbee: Another option for prepaid cards, subscriptions, and mobile credits

• Spritz Finance (U.S.): Connect crypto wallets to pay credit cards, mortgages, and utility bills

• Pouch.ph (Philippines): For paying local bills with BTC via the Lightning Network

These platforms bridge the gap between your crypto and your daily life.

Get Paid in Bitcoin or Tether

For freelancers and online workers, getting paid in crypto is a no-brainer.

• USDT is the most common method for international payments….stable, fast, and borderless.

• Bitcoin via Lightning is gaining traction for small payments and microtasks

Platforms like:

• Bitwage: Accept BTC or USDT for global payroll

• Request Finance: Invoice in USDT or BTC, paid in a self-custodial way

• Deel: Supports crypto payouts to remote workers and contractors and allows for more creative ways of payments

For small projects, even P2P apps like Telegram or Keet (built on Holepunch/Tether tech) are being used to settle invoices

Move Money Across Borders

Traditional cross-border banking is a mess of fees, delays, and red tape. Crypto does what the banks still can't;

• P2P transfers: Send USDT instantly on TRON, Ethereum, Solana, or even Lightning BTC

• Remittances: Instead of sending money through Western Union with fees, just send USDT to a self-custodial wallet like TronLink or Trust Wallet

• Exchange to local fiat: Use Binance P2P or LocalBitcoins (if available) to cash out when needed. There are (even) more creative ways for the more creative

In places with strict capital controls, this is the way to move money.

Stay Agile, Stay Private

Privacy matters. And while most mainstream options aren't built with it in mind, it's worth noting that of all the privacy-focused projects, Monero remains the most (or only) resilient (option). If the regulatory climate tightens, allocating some funds to Monero could be a smart hedge.

A full deep dive into Monero is probably worth its own article; but for now, just know it's the go-to for anyone serious about transacting discreetly in a tightening financial landscape.

And if you must use a KYC exchange, move funds out quickly after your swap. Assuming your self custodial set up is immaculate.

Real-World Case: Maria, a Copywriter in Buenos Aires

Maria gets paid in USDT by U.S. clients. Her local bank charges 50% to convert USD to pesos.

Instead, she:

• Holds USDT in Trust Wallet

• Spends via Binance Card

• Pays rent by converting small amounts to pesos on Binance P2P

• Buys groceries with prepaid Carrefour cards from Bitrefill

• Occasionally visits a cueva, Argentina's informal black-market currency exchange, to get a better rate for pesos in cash when needed

She saves at least 35% monthly and doesn’t worry about local inflation. That’s crypto in action. VLLC!

Bitcoin gives you sovereignty. Tether gives you usability. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can stack sats while living on USDT. You can save long-term while navigating day-to-day expenses. Living on crypto isn’t a fringe experiment anymore.

Stack it. Spend it. Live it.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

As of April 22, 2025, Tether continues to assert its dominance in the stablecoin market through mad expansions and strategic initiatives.

$10 Billion USDT Minted on TRON in 2025

Tether has minted $10 billion worth of USDT on the TRON network since the beginning of 2025, with the latest $1 billion minted on April 21. This brings the total USDT supply on TRON to over 69.71 billion tokens, distributed across more than 64 million wallets. The TRON network remains a preferred platform for USDT due to its low transaction fees and high throughput.

Tether's Role in Emerging Markets

Tether's influence extends significantly into emerging markets, with over 450 million users globally. USDT is increasingly used as a tool for savings and transactions in regions where traditional banking infrastructure is limited or unreliable.

Potential U.S. Payment Network Development

Tether is considering the development of a blockchain-based payment network in the United States. This initiative aims to provide an alternative to traditional checking accounts, leveraging stablecoins for everyday transactions. The move aligns with anticipated U.S. legislation on stablecoins and reflects Tether's strategy to expand its presence in the domestic market.

Strategic Investments and Infrastructure Expansion

In addition to its core operations, Tether has made strategic investments to bolster its infrastructure:

• Investment in Fizen Limited:

  • Tether has invested in Fizen, a fintech company specializing in self-custody crypto wallets and digital payments, underscoring its commitment to enhancing financial accessibility.

• Deployment of Hashrate on OCEAN:

  • Tether announced plans to deploy both existing and future hashrate on OCEAN, a decentralized Bitcoin mining pool, reinforcing its support for decentralized mining infrastructure

Tether is entrenching itself in places others still write whitepapers about. While competitors chase regulatory gold stars, Tether is laying down rails where the old system doesn’t reach; mining pools, P2P rails, and real-world integrations. As always, never waiting for permission; building leverage. And by the time the rest catch up, the foundation will already belong to Tether.

Circle is getting ready for its second IPO attempt, and this time, they’re going big. Backed by JPMorgan and Citi, the company is aiming for a $5 billion valuation. As always, the headlines suggest confidence, but the financials tell a different story.

Behind flashy numbers and glazed glossy investor decks is a company grappling with compression on all sides: falling margins, shrinking market share, ballooning compensation, and weak crypto conviction.

And meanwhile, Tether, leaner, quieter, and infinitely more effective, is stacking sats, growing adoption, and not begging for public capital.

The Circle Math Doesn’t Add Up

Let’s start with what Circle disclosed:

• $263 million in compensation in 2024

• Gross margins dropping from 59% (2022) to 39% (2024)

• Only 73 BTC on their balance sheet

• USDC market share down by ~50% since 2022

• Top-line revenue fed largely to Coinbase via distribution fees

That’s not a growth engine. That’s more like a company losing the stablecoin war while overpaying itself while losing it……..

Circle is betting that a yield-bearing stablecoin could turn the tide. But if they launch a “USDC with yield,” what’s stopping Tether from instantly countering with 3.3% and retaining dominance? With its lower cost structure and global momentum, Tether for the lack of a less disgusting word, is infinitely more agile.

Where’s the Crypto Conviction?

You’d think the second-largest stablecoin issuer would be loaded with digital assets. But nope; Circle holds just 73 BTC and under 2,000 ETH.

To put that in perspective: Rumble, a video platform, holds 188 BTC.

I am super surprised by this lack of exposure to be honest. Despite hundreds of millions in profit, Circle did almost nothing with the opportunity 2022 presented. It played safe, banked on strategic alliances, and paid fud campaigns while competitors built.

Distribution? More Like a Rug

Their partnership with Coinbase hasn’t brought them market share. Instead, it has just cost them more. The IPO docs make clear that Circle is paying a high price to keep USDC visible, and it’s not working.

They’d be better off breaking from that model and building a user base through product strength; not piggybacking off exchanges that don’t seem committed to helping them win.

The Yield Play and Tether’s Ace Card

All in all, they’re a corporate beast with a large and costly executive suite. The company’s compensation ballooned to $263 million last year, much of it sustaining a full orchestra of C-level titles. Hard to move like a startup when your headcount feels like a bank.

Circle seems to be moving toward a yield-bearing stablecoin, akin to stETH. The thesis? Offering interest to lure capital.

But there are two problems:

1. That only works if your competitor won’t match your rate

2. Tether already owns a huge part of the narrative and the rails

If USDC pays 3%, Tether can pay 3.3%. That’s a race Circle likely can’t win, no matter how MiCA-regulated they are.

While Circle is preparing a roadshow, Tether’s goated Paolo Ardoino posted a selfie with the Wall Street bull, captioned:

“Tether doesn’t need to go public.”

He's right. Tether is printing money, holding 100,000 BTC and then some, dominating emerging markets, and keeping regulators appeased with targeted address freezes. They don’t need investor capital; they’re becoming a sovereign-like issuer on their own terms.

If anything, Circle’s IPO exposes that they’re not winning.

Tether is operating on lower costs, deeper conviction, and stronger adoption. Circle is seeking validation through Wall Street, while Tether is building relevance across the Glob(e)al South.

In a war of outcomes, those C-suite execs better start delivering on their OKRs and justifying every line of those “high-ROI” KPI reports; fast. Because if adoption is the metric, Tether already won the decade.

There are two assets every crypto-native, freedom-seeking, inflation-weary individual should have in their arsenal: Bitcoin and USDT.

This article is a practical guide; not to the latest memecoin or L2 play, but to building real digital sovereignty. You’ll learn why it’s still early to accumulate Bitcoin (yes, even at current prices), how to do it without paralyzing stress, and why combining it with Tether (USDT) makes for a bulletproof strategy in today’s financial reality.

Let’s start with the king.

Why You Stack Sats

“Stacking sats” means regularly buying small amounts of Bitcoin, measured in satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin). There are 100 million sats in a single BTC. As of today 1 sat = €0.0007464871. Once Bitcoin hits 1 million euros 1 sat = €0.01. How is that for a “meme coin?”

Bitcoin is your digital gold, your vault, your hedge. But it's also your long-term lottery ticket in slow motion.

Buying at the price you deserve; exponentially cheaper today

Assume Bitcoin hits $1,000,000 in the next decade. (Not an outlandish projection by many crypto analysts.) At today’s price of $84,465, a single sat is $0.00084465.

At $1 million per coin, that same sat will cost you $0.01.

That’s an 11.8x increase in cost if you wait. Which means today is exponentially cheaper than tomorrow.

Even buying $10 or $50 worth of BTC weekly could accumulate life-changing value over time. That’s the beauty of stacking; small, consistent, compounding bets.

Do you even DCA?

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is the practice of investing a fixed dollar amount into Bitcoin at regular intervals, regardless of the price.

It removes emotion, which is good for the emotionally immature. It beats trying to time the market. And it builds discipline.

DCA can look like this:

• $10 every Monday through Strike or Swan

• $100 every month through Cash App or River

• $5 per day through your local exchange (Binance, ByBit, etc.)

Set it. Forget it. Stack it. Live eternal…..

Where To Start

Here are some beginner-friendly platforms for DCA:

• Binance
  The world’s largest exchange with strong infrastructure across Asia. Supports recurring buys in local currencies and offers low fees and deep liquidity.

• Bybit
  A fast-growing exchange in Asia with recurring spot buy features, intuitive mobile UX, and integration with USDT balances.

• Kraken
  Known for its security and global reach, Kraken offers scheduled recurring buys and is ideal for users who value transparency and regulation.

• Gate.io
  Popular in Asia with an expanding global footprint. Supports recurring buys and has a wide range of assets for users looking to DCA beyond just BTC.

  Wallets That Support DCA

• Relai (Europe)
  A non-custodial Bitcoin-only wallet designed for simplicity. Allows recurring BTC buys via SEPA transfers and lets users withdraw directly to self-custody.

• Edge Wallet (Global)
  A multi-asset mobile wallet with in-app DCA options through fiat ramps like MoonPay and Simplex. Great for beginners looking for an all-in-one tool.

Choose one that works in your region, connect your bank card, and schedule your buys. You don’t need to be a trader to be a sovereign. Not for the KYC wary……

Self-Custody or Nothing

If Bitcoin isn’t in your custody, it isn’t really yours.

Here’s where you can store your sats:

• Mobile wallets: Muun, Phoenix, BlueWallet (easy to start)

• Hardware wallets: Ledger, Trezor, BitBox (for larger stacks)

• Multi-sig vaults: For advanced security (Unchained Capital, Casa HODL)

Preferably don’t store large balances on exchanges. If your goal is independence, learn the basics of keys and seed phrases. Also, keep in mind that in some cases, a CEX is safer because the chances are higher that you lose funds in self-custody due to poor security practices.

Bitcoin is permissionless, but only if you hold the keys or have foolproof opsec.

Why You Stack USDT

Bitcoin is the vault. USDT is the wallet.

Bitcoin helps you escape inflation, Tether helps you operate within the real world.

• Access to U.S. dollar liquidity without a bank account

• Spendable, sendable, stable money

• Used for business, remittances, savings in places like Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, Lebanon

Tether is crypto’s base currency for a reason. It’s everywhere, liquid, and a trusted dollar.

Where to Get USDT

• P2P on Binance or OKX

• From exchanges like Bitfinex, MEXC, Gate

• On wallets like Trust Wallet, TronLink, or Coinbase Wallet

• OTC desks for large volumes

Why You Need Both

Sats give you upside. USDT gives you stability.

Bitcoin may 10x, 20x, or 50x. But it could also drop 50% over a cycle (from the top). USDT won’t make you rich; but it will keep your wealth intact when your local currency fails.

You could say that together they form a defensive and offensive strategy for financial self-reliance.

In a fiat world, you might save in cash and invest in gold. In the crypto-native world, you save in Bitcoin and operate in USDT.

Both represent independence. Both matter. Stack both.

The stable race is on; this time, not from crypto-native companies, but from Wall Street and Washington.

According to the Financial Times, Fidelity is preparing to launch its own stablecoin. The $5 trillion asset manager is in the final stages of testing a tokenized dollar designed to serve as cash within digital asset markets. They are doing this alongside a parallel effort to tokenize U.S. Treasuries and money market funds, bringing institutional-grade products to blockchain rails.

But wait, there’s more…..

In a separate development, World Liberty Financial, backed by President Trump and his sons has announced the launch of $USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by short-term Treasuries. Trump’s team is pushing legislation to support what they’re calling “lawful and legitimate” stablecoins and aims to have a bill ready to sign by August.

These two announcements, Fidelity’s institutional push and Trump’s ideological stake, signal something deeper: the stablecoin arena is now geopolitical.

Implications for Tether?

Tether is currently the dominant player, with USDT accounting for a majority of the $234 billion stablecoin market. Its reserves, mostly in short-term Treasuries, already rival those of nation-states. Here is a short vid on how it became “the majority”.

While Tether remains top dog in global adoption and liquidity, especially across emerging markets, these new stablecoins from the U.S. establishment are a tad more than just competition. It’s a power move from someone who doesn’t like losing.

If Fidelity’s stablecoin becomes the preferred dollar token for regulated institutions, and if Trump’s $USD1 gains political and retail traction within the U.S., Tether may find itself boxed out of parts of the American market, not by market dynamics, but by design.

Yet Tether’s strength has never been in the U.S. retail space. Its dominance comes from its offshore infra and its use as a tool for financial access in countries where the banking system is broken; Nigeria, Turkey, Argentina, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, to name a few.

As mentioned in one of my earlier pieces, as a response to U.S. regulatory pressures, Tether could even roll out a "USDT2"; a fully U.S.-compliant variant backed 1:1 and managed through a registered entity, without abandoning its flagship product used globally. That would mirror the "geo-fenced compliance strategy" used previously by -let’s say - Binance.

A Fragmented Dollar Future

Rather than a single winner, we may see a fractured stablecoin landscape:

• USDT for global liquidity and emerging markets

• Fidelity’s token for institutional collateral and trading

• $USD1 as a symbolic retail-facing coin promoted by Trump’s base

What matters now is not just who issues stablecoins; but who they serve, who controls them, and how they connect to existing power structures.

Tether has a network effect. Fidelity has the institutional pipeline. Trump has the bulldog clout.

Apparently, the stablecoin wars are diversifying (and worsening). Now it’s just a matter of everyone picking sides.

In much of the world, the U.S. dollar is a lifeline. But while “developed” economies debate stablecoin regulation, emerging markets have already made their decision. For millions of people, USDT is their dollar.

Tether’s presence in the developing world has grown far beyond crypto trading. It has become a key part of daily transactions, remittances, savings, and even unofficial foreign reserves in nations struggling with currency instability and capital controls. The shift isn’t theoretical as it’s happening on the ground, and it’s redefining global finance. For sources, feel free to check out my earlier articles!

Why Emerging Markets Rely on USDT

Gabor Gurbacs, a strategist at Tether, recently highlighted an older article of his about seven ways USDT is transforming emerging economies. Super interesting insights that offer a foundation for understanding why stablecoins, particularly USDT, have embedded themselves so deeply in financial systems across Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia.

Rather than simply repeating those points, let’s take them further. It goes without saying that the impact of Tether extends beyond financial inclusion. Let’s take a closer look at how it is most likely redefining monetary sovereignty, financial policy, and even geopolitical power structures.

Why USDT is a Safe Haven

For citizens of countries facing hyperinflation, USDT provides the ability to preserve wealth in ways their national currencies cannot.

• Argentina: With annual inflation surpassing 250%, holding pesos means losing money. Many Argentinians use USDT as a store of value and medium of exchange. More in-depth reading on the actual inflation below!

  BowTiedMara - Argentina & Geoarbitrage

  Alice in Weimarland

  Welcome Avatar! As we close in on record inflation not seen since WWII even in so called “first world” countries, now is a good time to give an update on the current inflation and debasement landscape in Argentina. Let’s dive in…

  Read more

  4 years ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · BowTiedMara

• Turkey: The lira has lost more than 80% of its value in the last five years. USDT allows Turkish businesses and individuals to hold dollars without relying on a fragile banking system. Huge CEX market too…..

• Lebanon: Following a banking collapse (ever since 2019), Lebanese citizens turned to USDT as their only reliable financial option when banks froze dollar withdrawals

Unlike official dollarization, which requires government approval, USDT adoption happens at the grassroots level; without central banks needing to sign off (yet)

Is USDT Becoming an Alternative Reserve Asset?

Some governments may not officially acknowledge USDT holdings, but there is speculation that certain central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and financial institutions hold USDT in unofficial reserves. Some wild speculation but not unimaginable.

For countries facing U.S. sanctions or financial restrictions, USDT offers a way to bypass traditional banking rails. It allows institutions to hold dollar-equivalent reserves without reliance on the Western financial system. And it allows citizens of sanctioned countries to go about their daily business. It isn’t until you speak to someone who has been cut off from all financial rails and everyday platforms that you truly understand how impactful this can be.

Cross-Border Payments Without the Middlemen

Sending money across borders has historically been expensive, with companies like Western Union charging up to 10% in fees. USDT removes the need for intermediaries.

• Nigeria: Businesses importing goods use USDT because local banks impose capital controls that restrict access to dollars

• Venezuela: With its banking sector crippled by hyperinflation, remittances in USDT provide a stable and very empowering financial lifeline to millions

• Afghanistan: Following the Taliban’s takeover, many Afghans relied on USDT for cross-border transactions after the country was cut off from SWIFT

USDT allows people to send and receive value instantly, across borders, with little friction.

Banking Without Banks: How USDT Expands Access

In many developing countries, the biggest obstacle to financial participation isn’t a lack of money; it’s a lack of access to stable money. Over 1.4 billion adults worldwide lack a bank account, but most of them have a mobile phone. USDT allows them to transact without needing a traditional bank.

Bringing Stability for Investors in Volatile Markets

For developing nations, currency volatility discourages investment. If investors cannot trust the value of their returns, they will hesitate to allocate capital.

By enabling transactions in stable digital dollars, USDT removes the currency risk that has traditionally kept foreign investors away.

Cheaper, Faster Transactions in an Unstable World

Traditional banking fees in many developing nations are prohibitive. USDT allows for near-instant transfers with fees that are a fraction of the cost of legacy financial systems.

A Digital Economy Without Borders

While central banks discuss launching CBDCs, Tether is already filling that role. Instead of waiting for government-led digital dollar projects, markets are organically choosing USDT as their unofficial CBDC.

The widespread adoption of USDT in emerging markets raises questions that go beyond Web3. Stablecoins are decoupling from crypto markets and will continue to do so, raising new questions;

1. Does this challenge the role of central banks in weak economies? If people opt out of local currencies and only transact in USDT, does the government lose control over monetary policy?

2. Will the U.S. government react? The irony is that USDT is actually helping to sustain dollar dominance globally, yet it remains outside direct U.S. regulatory oversight

3. Could we see a geopolitical battle over stablecoins? If a foreign power wanted to weaken U.S. influence, restricting USDT adoption could be a strategy. Conversely, Tether’s role could strengthen the dollar’s grip in a way that traditional banking cannot

Stablecoins have often been discussed in the context of crypto markets, but the reality is much bigger. For millions of people USDT is a financial necessity. In a glib way, it’s the “people’s coin.” It provides stability, access, and freedom in places where the traditional system has failed and is potentially actively defrauding its citizens, whether through bank freezes or controlled hyperinflation.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen

Tether’s latest move with Hadron is probably unlike anything you have seen in the stablecoin landscape as of late. While USDT remains the dominant force in crypto trading, the push into real-world asset tokenization signals something deeper than a simple expansion. The strategic reasoning behind this is worth examining, especially in the context of the current state regulatory environment, competition from institutions, and the shifting dynamics of the space as a whole.

Hadron makes Tether undeniable for TradFi. Real-world asset tokenization has gained momentum, with BlackRock launching BUIDL, Goldman Sachs exploring tokenized bonds, and Circle making similar moves with USDC. The trend is clear, institutions are waking up to the idea that assets can be moved and settled more efficiently on-chain (24/7). Tether, long seen as an outsider to institutional finance, is now building infrastructure that connects crypto-native liquidity with TradFi markets.

Stablecoins were the first iteration of tokenized RWAs, digitizing cash in a way that made transactions seamless across the blockchain. The logical next step is bringing other forms of value (securities, bonds, commodities) into a tokenized format. The question is not whether this transition will happen, but who controls the infrastructure that supports it. By launching Hadron, Tether will ensure that USDT must be used here too. If institutions begin settling transactions with tokenized bonds, treasuries, or money market funds, they will need a highly liquid and widely accepted digital settlement layer. USDT, with its badass role in global markets, is a prime candidate.

Regulatory considerations also play a major role in this shift. The United States has signaled an intention to control the issuance of dollar-backed stablecoins, potentially limiting offshore entities. Hadron provides Tether with an avenue to remain relevant even if restrictions tighten. RWA tokenization opens new revenue streams that do not rely entirely on stablecoin issuance. If regulations force a separation between stablecoin providers and traditional finance, Tether can still exert influence over financial flows through its infrastructure.

Tether’s involvement in RWA tokenization also strengthens its position in the ongoing competition with USDC. Circle has aligned itself with major U.S. financial institutions and regulatory bodies. By contrast, Tether has focused on global markets where demand for an alternative financial system (and a dollar hedge against failing currencies) is strongest. Tokenized RWAs introduce a new playing field where both entities will compete for relevance. The advantage for Tether lies in its ability to move faster and integrate with the crypto-native economy more effectively than U.S.-regulated competitors. While USDC benefits from institutional backing, Tether benefits from doing whatever it wants with fewer bureaucratic constraints, allowing it to innovate in areas where TradFi is eager yet hesitant.

Another key factor is liquidity. The tokenization of RWAs introduces new assets that need to be traded and settled efficiently. USDT, already the most liquid asset in crypto, provides an instant solution. If Tether plays its cards right, Hadron will create additional demand for USDT rather than drifting away from it. Instead of competing directly with institutions launching tokenized securities, Tether can position itself as the infra provider that facilitates their adoption.

Competitors in the space are moving with different strategies. BlackRock’s BUIDL is focused on tokenized treasuries and operates within the framework of U.S. regulatory oversight. This makes sense for institutions looking for exposure to tokenized financial products without deviating from compliance standards. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are experimenting with permissioned blockchain solutions, prioritizing controlled environments where transactions remain within their own financial ecosystems. These approaches are conservative; also they don’t need to disrupt financial markets. Because they do that with their shenanigans on the daily anyway. Tether, on the other hand, moves in the opposite direction; bridging permissionless blockchain networks with real-world value, a model that embraces open participation rather than controlled access.

The challenge will be to which extent Tether can execute effectively. Hadron positions the company (and itself) as an obvious player in tokenization, but its success will depend on adoption. Unlike traditional stablecoins, which have an obvious use case in crypto trading and payments, RWA tokenization requires institutional participation. HELLO CANTOR FITZGERALD! Tether will onboard partners that see the value in using permissionless blockchain solutions rather than the closed-loop systems favored by banks and asset managers. Assuming Cantor helps them out, Hadron will expand Tether’s influence beyond stablecoins and into the broader digital financial system.

So again, it’s not a pivot away from stables as such; it’s facilitating a strategic decision that reinforces USDT’s dominance while preparing for an inevitable shift in financial infra to come. If stablecoin regulation in the U.S. becomes restrictive, Tether will have built another pillar of relevance. If tokenized RWAs take off, Tether will have secured a role in that ecosystem before institutions can monopolize it. Making sure that in the end, whether through stablecoins or tokenized assets, Tether remains a powerhouse in global finance.

In this recent Bloomberg interview, Ardoino delivered a compelling argument about why Tether, despite issuing a U.S. dollar stablecoin, operates from El Salvador and Switzerland rather than the United States.

His response was nothing short of a masterclass in understanding global financial demand, product-market fit, and why the stablecoin wars are bigger than U.S. regulatory preferences. Or at least a masterclass in giving a constructive response to a snarky question.

Ultimately, the battle is about who truly upholds the dominance of the U.S. dollar in an economic landscape that sends shivers down the spine of global markets.

The Stablecoin Bill & Tether’s Unmatched Global Use Case

When asked about the potential impact of the U.S. stablecoin bill, Ardoino made it clear: regulatory clarity is more than welcome, but Tether is already doing what no government initiative or traditional financial institution has managed to accomplish; sustaining U.S. dollar dominance in emerging markets.

Tether is the digital lifeline for 400 million+ users in developing countries who lack access to stable banking systems. With 40 million new wallets per quarter, the sheer scale of Tether’s adoption is taking the FEDs breath away. No other stablecoin; even U.S.-compliant ones can claim such widespread real-world use.

Tether’s Growing Ties in Washington

Despite operating outside U.S. borders, Tether is far from being an outsider in Washington.

• Paolo Ardoino confirmed meetings with lawmakers and the U.S. administration

• Tether has strong institutional relationships, particularly with Cantor Fitzgerald

• Tether is deeply integrated into global financial systems through its U.S. Treasury holdings

Ardoino emphasized that Cantor Fitzgerald; led by Howard Lutnick, a key financial player with deep U.S. political ties conducted extensive due diligence on Tether before becoming its trusted custodian for $115 billion in U.S. Treasuries.

For reference, Tether is now the 19th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries in the world, ahead of several sovereign nations. If that doesn’t underscore its significance in global finance, what does?

The Billion-Dollar Question: Why Not Operate from the U.S.?

At one point in the interview, a Bloomberg host posed the provocative question:

"Why are you based in El Salvador and spending time in Switzerland when you have a U.S. dollar stablecoin? Why don't you do your work out of the United States if the underlying asset is our dollar?"

Ardoino’s response was both simple and profound:

1. Tether’s core user base is outside the U.S.

   • In the U.S., there are multiple digital payment options; Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, credit cards, debit cards. 95% of Americans are banked

   • In contrast, there are 3 billion people globally who are unbanked or underbanked; and they overwhelmingly prefer to hold dollars over their local currency

2. Tether operates where the demand is greatest.

   • U.S. regulators assume dollar access is easy, but in countries suffering from inflation and financial instability, USDT is the only reliable option for millions

   • The fact that Tether is buying up U.S. Treasuries and holding $115 billion in reserves shows that it is doing more for U.S. dollar stability than many U.S.-based financial firms

Why This Interview Matters (To Me)

This short exchange highlights why I love Tether and why the stablecoin war isn’t about U.S. or European compliance; it’s about who puts their money where their mouth is and actually defends and expands dollar dominance worldwide. So let’s do a bit of a reframe….

• Tether isn’t avoiding U.S. oversight. It has active relationships with U.S. institutions, but its mission is global

• U.S.-regulated stablecoins (like USDC) might have Washington’s blessing, but they lack Tether’s real-world network effect

• If U.S. regulators continue prioritizing restrictive policies, they risk weakening dollar adoption instead of strengthening it

Ardoino’s stance is clear: The U.S. dollar’s reach is strongest where people need it the most, and Tether is the vehicle making that happen.

At the end of the day, the stablecoin war will be won by whoever has the biggest network effect.

And right now, that’s Tether.

I love stablecoins, Tether in particular, and I will be writing about the ongoing and ever-increasing future stablecoin war. Stay tuned for insights, drama, and analysis as it all unfolds.

P.S. In case you didn’t realize, I am not Patrick Hansen