The Stablecoin King | Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on GENIUS Act, Circle IPO, Bitcoin & Tether to Trillions

Bankless

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Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino returns to Bankless at a historic moment for stablecoins. With the Genius Act advancing in the U.S. Congress, Paolo discusses what regulatory clarity means for Tether, the future of USDT, and the company’s plans to launch a domestic stablecoin. We explore the Circle IPO hype, Tether’s eye-popping profits, its growing presence in the U.S. Treasuries and Bitcoin mining, and how grassroots distribution across emerging markets powers its dominance. Paolo also gives a glimpse into Tether’s ambitions in AI, tokenized gold, and the battle to distribute the dollar where banks can’t reach. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | Ryan & David Unpacking the Episode https://www.bankless.com/podcast/debrief-the-stablecoin-king-tether-ceo-paolo-ardoino ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐CELO | BUILD TOGETHER AND PROSPER https://bankless.cc/Celo 🟠 BINANCE | THE WORLDS #1 CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/binance ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 5:32 GENIUS Act 12:54 Tether & The US 22:13 Domestic Competition 26:23 Circle IPO 23:36 Handling Pressure 28:32 Stablecoin Valuations 31:38 Winning the Next Chapter 36:52 USDT in Emerging Markets 41:58 Tether & Crypto Correlation 45:52 Tether Ventures 53:25 Tether Wallet? 56:44 Tether & Bitcoin 1:00:15 Other Assets 1:01:07 Bitcoin Mining 1:04:58 Tokenized Gold 1:09:01 GENIUS Act Consequences 1:12:27 Europe 1:14:49 Why Tether is Good 1:17:50 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Paolo Ardoino https://x.com/paoloardoino USDT Insights https://usdt.network/ Tether https://tether.io/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	Last year, we made 13.7 billion in profits.
0:02.6	And this year, I think we are going to beat that.
0:05.5	Wait, 13.7 billion in profits?
0:08.6	Last year.
0:09.3	And this year, I think we can do a little bit better.
0:15.2	Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of stable coin finance.
0:20.0	This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with
0:21.5	David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Guys, there's a Game of Thrones
0:27.6	going on right now, a stable coin war of sorts. Tether is the undisputed number one lead of
0:33.6	stable coins right now. So I guess that makes our next guest, Paulo Ardonio, who's its CEO,
0:39.6	the stablecoin king. And I got to say, for a king, he's pretty unassuming, but he has ambitious
0:45.6	plans for the continued distribution and dominance of tether. And that's going to be important
0:50.8	in this new era, an era where we've just seen the Genius Act,
0:55.1	the U.S.'s landmark stablecoin bill, just past the Senate. Looks like that's going to go
0:59.4	forward to Trump's desk and it will get signed. So my biggest question going to this episode was,
1:04.9	assuming the Genius Act passes, what's Paolo planning to do with USCT and Tether? Is he going
1:10.8	for compliance?
1:12.4	Or is he going to launch a new U.S. domestic, stable coin, and bifurgate things?
1:18.0	The answer sounded like it was both, but it was also really nuanced,
1:21.9	and you'll have to listen in to find out and get your take.
1:25.1	He also said, and this made David and I almost fall out of our chairs,
1:28.6	that Tether made almost $14 billion in profits last year. Okay, that's profits. I did some math after
	...

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