Why Tether’s CEO is everywhere right now Connie Loizos 12:32 PM PST · February 1, 2026 If you read the news, you might have noticed a trend this past week. In addition to splashy features in Fortune and Bloomberg , Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino talked with Reuters , He also talked with TechCrunch. Why did the man behind the stablecoin that everyone loves to hate launch a full-scale media blitz?
The timing isn’t arbitrary. This week, Tether launched USAT , a U.S.-regulated stablecoin issued through Anchorage Digital Bank — its first product designed to comply with new federal rules and compete directly with Circle’s USDC. Fidelity Investments also just launched a competing stablecoin on Wednesday, joining JPMorgan Chase and PayPal in a broadening race.
It’s a big shift from one extreme to the other. For years, Ardoino avoided the United States, watching from offshore as regulators circled and prosecutors investigated. His company was portrayed as opaque, possibly fraudulent, and, according to a piece by The Economist last summer, a “ money launderer’s dream .”
But when Ardoino and I chatted by video call this week, it was clear those days are over. Tether is meeting with White House officials, collaborating with the FBI and Secret Service, and betting USAT can break Circle’s grip on the U.S. market. (USAT is separate from Tether’s flagship USDT, which has $187 billion in circulation globally but doesn’t meet new U.S. regulatory requirements.) Speaking from Lugano, Switzerland, where Tether maintains an office, the 41-year-old – who joined the company just two months after its 2014 launch – spent over an hour describing Tether’s transformation from a crypto play to mainstream acceptance.
Its momentum is undeniable, certainly. Tether’s USDT — essentially a digital dollar that uses blockchain technology to move across borders without being tied to any single institution — has a market capitalization larger than all of its stablecoin competitors combined. It also has some 536 million users, growing at 30 million per quarter. “It’s growing at a pace more like Facebook rather than any other fintech application,” Ardoino tells me.
Tether’s first-mover advantage goes beyond market dominance, says Ardoino, describing it as transformative for people in countries with weak currencies. “In Argentina, the peso lost 94.5% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last five years,” he observes. “In Haiti, the average salary is $1.34 per day. These people were never part of the financial system.”
“What Tether created is the biggest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity,” he continues.
Techcrunch event TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston , more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. TechCrunch Founder Summit: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston , more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. Boston, MA | June 23, 2026 REGISTER NOW Ardoino knows he has a lot of work to do to convert more people into believers. It didn’t help when, last summer, The Economist detailed how Russian money launderer Ekaterina Zhdanova allegedly used Tether to connect British drug gangs, Moscow hackers, sanctioned oligarchs, and Russian intelligence operatives.
When I bring up that reporting, Ardoino brushes it off, calling the amounts highlighted in the piece “truly a drop in the ocean.” The “infinite, vast majority of the usage of USDT is by good people,” he says, adding that the company now works with almost 300 law enforcement agencies across more than 60 countries. “iPhones are sometimes used by bad people, Toyotas are used by bad people.”
But he goes even further, arguing that his company’s technology makes it superior to cash when it comes to monitoring illicit activity. “If there are cash pallets of hundreds of billions of dollars roaming around the world, U.S. law enforcement can hardly do anything about it,” he says. “But with USDT, we demonstrated that working with the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service and hundreds of other law enforcement agencies, we could quickly freeze the funds.”
In fact, according to Ardoino, Tether has frozen $3.5 billion in tokens, the vast majority of which belonged to “people who have been scammed or hacked.” In 2023, he says, for example, Tether proactively identified $225 million in a “pig-butchering scam” in the “blink of an eye” after traditional financial systems failed to catch it. (Pig-butchering scams involve scammers who befriend victims or even romance them over time before luring them into fake investments.)
“We have onboarded the FBI and the Secret Service. We follow OFAC [the office that enforces U.S. sanctions],” he tells me.
Whether critics are satisfied isn’t yet clear, but Tether has survived every attempt to bring it down. It’s an ongoing battle. Just three months ago, the S&P Global Ratings called USDT’s stability weak .
When I raise this point, Ardoino is dismissive. “If that is the same S&P that completely missed the subprimes, I’m proud they’re considering us weak.”
He then points to spring 2022, when another major stablecoin called TerraLuna abruptly collapsed , wiping out $40 billion in value virtually overnight. Panic spread across the stablecoin market, and hedge funds bet Tether would be next to fail. Customers rushed to pull their money out. “We redeemed $7 billion in 48 hours – 10% of our reserves. In 20 days, $20 billion – 25% of our reserves. There is no bank in the world that can survive that level of redemptions. We did it with flying colors.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-- --
PLEASE LIKE IF YOU FOUND THIS HELPFUL TO SUPPORT OUR FORUM.
