Tether Unveils USAT to 'Revolutionize the U.S. Financial System'

Today, Tether unveiled USAT, its planned US regulated dollar-backed stablecoin at an event in New York City. Now, it also announced that the CEO of this endeavor is going to be former White House Crypto Council Executive Director Bo Hines. If you need a refresher, Tether is the issuer of the largest stablecoin globally with a more than $160 billion market cap and $45 billion daily transfer volume. If you need some context there, that's more than some credit card and remittance companies. During the event, Tether CEO Paolo Arduino provided powerful context for their global impact. He said that 63% of USDT transactions sent to only USDT. Now, this means that folks who are using USDT, or 63% of them, aren't interacting with any other crypto. This statistic highlights its crucial role as a financial lifeline for people in countries with high inflation who use USDT to save and protect their wealth. According to Arduino and Hines, USAT represents a strategic bridge here, an attempt to connect this proven global mission with the regulatory framework and institutional markets of the US. I caught up with them at the event. Here's what they had to say about USAT being the tip of the spear to revolutionize the US financial system, why Tether's future is a super ecosystem, and why pleasing Wall Street with an IPO is not part of the plan.

Bo, how does it feel to be the CEO of USAT?

You're going to miss working in government.

Paolo, I want to come over to you now. I want to talk about USAT and USDT. Just talk to me about the difference between the two for folks who are just learning about it today.

So USDT is the stablecoin, the digital dollar for all the emerging markets, has now almost 500 million users across all emerging markets, developing countries, and is a product that was properly designed for all the unbanked and underserved of those regions. Think about Africa, Central, South America, Southeast Asia, and similar. Instead, USAT is a product that is designed for the US market, is branded for the US market, is a product that will focus to find the people and the communities that still need and better access to financial services. So they are the underserved of America, but at the same time is well positioned thanks to the GENIUS Act to collaborate with all the US institutions to create this symbiosis between a foreign product like USDT, a domestic product like USAT, and this huge distribution network that Tether created over the last many years that is able to reach and touch directly hundreds of millions of people. So now when we are talking to institutions in the United States that are the most sophisticated institutions in the world, they understand that we are uniquely positioned to help them also to broaden their reach through our huge distribution network. And all starts from USAT within the United States and then if needed globally can expand to USDT. We are using the two stablecoins in a very parallel way so that there are two flavors of the same product but at the same time they are completely working under the same technological protocol so they are swappable, interoperable, and can continue to grow and become the de facto standard for all the financial transactions in the United States and abroad.

You talk about the underserved Americans who USAT can help as USDT has in other regions all over the world. Talk to me a little bit about what that population looks like.

So that population is the one that is the lowest earner. For example, they are the ones that are in this moment subject to or they have difficulties to obtain bank accounts or simply to have access to a cheap way to transact. And I think with blockchain technology, we can in fact introduce wallets that are digital wallets that allow these communities to hold onto their dollars in a way that is very safe, is very liquid, is very fast to transact with, is very broadly accepted because again these financial rails built between USDT are able to let them reach hundreds of millions of people. And sometimes happens that the low-income part of the population is the one that is also coinciding or overlapping with the expats. So they are the ones that also need their remittances the most. But their remittances as we said now are in control of few companies that are charging very high fees. So the ecosystem that we are creating is speaking to the people that are underserved because we understand their needs and we proved that with USDT while the rest of the financial world was asleep at the wheel.

You said in the fireside chat no ambitions to go public as you come to the US. Just tell me a little bit more about that.