Reprint: Daisy, Mars Finance
Original Title: Dialogue with Tether's Leader: We Are Building a "Four-Dimensional Stability" New World from Cryptocurrency to AI Agents
In an era where stablecoins are gradually penetrating the global economy and AI intersects with blockchain technology, a highly controversial and influential company is quietly constructing its "infinite funding crack" strategy. This episode of The Block specially invites Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino to share Tether's on-chain layout thinking, billion-dollar investment directions, systematic strategy for AI and energy, and even long-term ambitions of establishing an open-source brain-computer interface system.
A Tech Geek Transformed into a Stablecoin Helmsman, Calling for Strengthened US Regulation of USDT
Host: Welcome, Paolo. Could you introduce yourself and how you became Tether's CEO?
Paolo: I'm a tech maniac who has been coding for 32 years. I initially worked as a senior developer at Bitfinex, later becoming CTO of Bitfinex and Tether, until becoming Tether's CEO in 2023. My philosophy has always been to build technologies that can persist even in the worst scenarios, not systems that only work in ideal environments.
Host: A few years ago, Tether faced many doubts, but now it has become one of the most profitable companies globally, with profits reaching $13 billion last year alone. How do you view this transformation?
Paolo: Our entire industry is still in its early stages. Tether was founded in 2014, proposing the "stablecoin" concept, which hardly anyone cared about in the first decade. But now, 2025 is called the "Year of Stablecoins", and the US government is developing corresponding regulations, which says it all.
This process was not easy. We built an entirely new industry from scratch, naturally creating friction with the traditional financial system and encountering many obstacles, especially from the banking system. But our team never retreated, always believing in providing dollars for those excluded by mainstream finance.
For me personally, this is also the first time I truly entered the United States - I'm 40 and only now visiting for the first time. In recent years, regulatory actions like "Chokepoint 2.0" were very unfavorable to us, but in recent communications on Capitol Hill and with administrative agencies, I can sense attitudes are improving.
The global influence of stablecoins is indeed increasing daily, especially in developing countries where their role is particularly prominent. For example, the US financial system is already very sophisticated, with efficiency around 90%, where stablecoins might improve it to 95%. But in countries like Nigeria, Argentina, or Turkey, financial efficiency might be only 10-20%, and with stablecoins, it could leap to 50%. So for these countries, stablecoins are even more significant.
Regulatory frameworks should also consider this and provide appropriate safeguards for overseas issuers like USDT. USDT is a foreign stablecoin for the US, but its importance is not diminished - it's even more crucial for maintaining the global status of the US dollar and purchasing US Treasury bonds.
Host: Do you think the US will launch its own stablecoin in the future?
Paolo: Even if the US launches its own digital currency, privately issued stablecoins will still play a crucial role. The success of USDT precisely demonstrates that stablecoins issued by private companies can greatly help the US. We hold a large amount of US Treasury bonds through US domestic institutions like Cantor Fitzgerald, with an extremely transparent process. The US can closely supervise us without bearing the burden of issuance and management.
[Translation continues in the same manner...]
Paolo: They are not interested in blockchain itself. Their only concern is one thing - fees should be low, almost zero.
We recommended some digital wallets from our partners and encouraged them to store USDT in these wallets. However, we also discovered a problem: many wallets are promoting fancy features to users, such as using USDT for investing in a coin, participating in staking, or buying Non-Fungible Tokens. These behaviors are detrimental to family savings.
So we decided that Tether should create its own wallet focused on these markets, with savings as the core experience. We are developing an open-source SDK called Wallet Development Kit (WDK), which anyone can use to develop wallets. This wallet interface will be very simple, with only two accounts: one for daily USDT transactions, and another savings account that can be used to store Bitcoin and connect to decentralized yield protocols. Developers can choose to add new features, but our default version is an extremely simplified version designed for African users. We are simultaneously maintaining cooperation with Opera's MiniPay team and seeking more partners.
We have done the most Bitcoin education globally, but in these markets, we often receive feedback like: "I understand Bitcoin, but I still want USDT."
This is not because people are ignorant, but because they lack time or resources to deeply understand Bitcoin. Many "Bitcoin maximalists" overlook this point, assuming everyone worldwide has the conditions to research cryptocurrency, which is not the case.
Therefore, we want to establish trust using something familiar to them - like USDT - and then gradually guide them to Bitcoin. Education is a long-term battle that cannot be won by talking, but by actually doing. Tether is investing substantial funds and resources on-site to advance this process.
[The rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach, maintaining the original meaning while translating into clear English.]However, we also believe that the Italian football system is very backward, almost like a bureaucratic machine. Football clubs should not be just about sentiment, but should operate like enterprises, with profits, management, ability to buy better players, improve communication systems, and expand the fan base.
Tether can help Juventus achieve these goals. We have a global digital and physical distribution network that can push Juventus' brand worldwide. Additionally, many technology companies we invest in can also provide support for Juventus.
So, while this investment began with love, we are gradually infusing it with rationality and strategy.
Not just a stablecoin, Tether's "Four Stability" philosophy
Paolo: When someone asks me "What is Tether," I say "Tether is a stability company" that aims to provide three types of "stability" to society:
Monetary stability: For emerging markets, stablecoins are already a huge leap; for developed markets, Bitcoin might be more important.
Communication stability: This refers to freedom of speech. For a society to be stable, citizens must be able to communicate freely. If control over information flow is lost, social structures become unstable.
Intellectual stability: With AI development, if it is centrally controlled, it could create an even more severe intellectual gap than current monetary or communication disparities. For example, if the Italian government heavily relies on OpenAI's products, and diplomatic relations between the US and Italy break down, the entire Italian society would become "less intelligent".
We have also established decentralized energy systems in Africa. Some suggested we "build nuclear power plants," but we believe the most practical approach is distributed deployment through small renewable energy nodes.
Adding this point, our vision has now evolved from "three stabilities" to "four stabilities": stable currency, stable communication, stable intelligence, and stable energy. Only when these four are combined can society truly be stable.
Host: It sounds like you've done many public welfare activities. Is this an imitation of "effective altruism"? Or have shareholders become so wealthy that they can now pursue these socially progressive initiatives?
Paolo: I don't want to be categorized as an "effective altruist" - everyone knows what that movement ultimately led to. But we do believe that when a company has accumulated sufficient resources, there's no need to profit from every single thing.
In the future, every AI agent will have a wallet, and it should be a self-hosted wallet. In 15 years, we will have a trillion AI agents. They cannot all be connected to PayPal or Morgan Stanley's servers. I believe AI agents will transact using stablecoins and Bitcoin. If we embed a self-hosted wallet in every AI agent, these AI agents are likely to choose USDT as one of their primary currencies.
This is the point I raised in my Token 2049 speech. Tether is fortunate because we possess three things:
Technical capability: We have not only built the most widely used stablecoin system globally but also developed decentralized communication platforms like Holepunch. Our technology stack is highly free and scalable.
Philosophical concept: We come from the Bitcoin world, and we believe freedom is the ultimate goal. Tether's ultimate goal is to defend freedom.
Capital: In this aspect, we have enormous autonomy and do not depend on venture capital. VCs typically only invest in products that can be directly controlled and monetized, and peer-to-peer products like Keet and Holepunch are naturally uncontrollable. Therefore, we can use our own capital to build these truly open systems.
Tether is committed to maintaining independence, avoiding becoming a negative force, and hoping that even if changes occur in the future, the technologies created can exist independently - this is the core charm of peer-to-peer technology.
