Listen to the article
LUGANO, Switzerland — Tether, the crypto company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT USDT$1.0001, is planning fresh investments to bring its U.S.-focused U.S. dollar stablecoin to a 100 million American user base, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an interview on Friday.
The USAT token, designed specifically for the U.S. market to comply with federal regulations set by the GENIUS Act’s requirements, is set to launch this December, Ardoino said. It is issued by Tether America, a joint venture between Tether and regulated U.S. crypto bank Anchorage Digital.
A key element for Tether to distribute the upcoming token is Rumble (RUM), the video sharing platform Tether invested $775 million into last year, and its upcoming crypto wallet, also coming out later this year. Rumble alone has 51 million active monthly users in the U.S. that can potentially onboard for USAT tokens, Ardoino said.
“We are investing in two-three companies that would bring that number from 51 million to 100 million,” he said.
Without naming specific firms, he said the investment targets may include social media companies, content platforms similar to Rumble as Tether aims to position its USAT token for payments in the creator economy.
“For the U.S. market, you need to create a more professional and digital approach to money that can compete with PayPal and so on,” he said. “The beauty is that we already have a user base that would use that money in the economy […] so the offering will be unbeatable.”
“We are going to hit the ground running, and we’re going to start taking away market share from our competitors that were the ones that tried to kill us in the first place,” Ardoino said.
Read more: Tether Unveils USAT Stablecoin for U.S. Market, Names Bo Hines to Lead New Division
Gold rush
Tether, while still mainly focusing on emerging markets where dollar access is limited, has been benefitting from rapid stablecoin adoption, in part bolstered by regulatory advances such as the GENIUS Act in the U.S. that allows digital tokens to be more embedded in global payments. The firm’s flagship token USDT rose to a $182 billion supply, swelling by a third since the start of the year and dominating the roughly $300 billion asset class. Circle’s (CRCL) token USDC$0.9998 is currently second with $72 billion, growing about 70% this year.
Meanwhile, the firm’s other token, the physical gold-backed XAUT$4,125.89, also surged over the past months as the yellow metal rallied to fresh all-time highs. XAUT’s market size rose to a record $2.2 billion, more than tripling since the start of the year.
That growth comes in large part from retail demand, Ardoino said.
“We see retail in Central and South America and Asia piling up now, starting to learn about tokenized gold,” he said. Due to the retail frenzy for gold, market makers also increasingly tapped tokenized gold as they could sell them on secondary markets for a bigger spread with CME futures on the other side of the trade.
Nasdaq-listed firm Prestige Wealth recently raised $150 million, anchored by bitcoin BTC$110,433.33 lender Antalpha, to hoard Tether’s tokenized gold, also adding to the demand.
Read more: Tether Unveils Synthetic AI Dataset to Democratize STEM Intelligence
