All right, hello everyone, welcome back to the Relay Bitcoin podcast. Today I have a very, very special guest here with me, even in Switzerland, Paolo Ardoino. How are you?
Hey Julian, I'm great, thank you very much for having me. Very excited.
Yeah, super excited. I mean, it's absolutely crazy what is going on with you guys lately. I don't know many people that have so much energy like you. You've really been a very driving force in the whole Bitcoin and stablecoin space in the last probably decade. When did you get into Bitcoin and crypto personally?
2013, then joined Bitfinex 2014, and Tether right after that.
Yeah, so and like you haven't lost steam. If anything, you have gained steam and really put a lot of power into different directions. It's crazy. But then I have also learned at the last Plan B Forum that you actually grew up in a very small town, like I did, not in Switzerland but in Italy. So tell me a little bit about how you grew up.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I grew up in this small town called Chiavari. It's a very tiny town on the Ligurian Riviera, 100 kilometers from the French border. And I think I was very lucky because I was not a very social guy. And when I was eight, nine years old, I was lucky enough that my father brought home the first personal computer. I was already playing with the other things, you know, the Atari, the Commodore, but actually the game changer for me was the computer. And since it was so small as a town and my parents were working half of the day in day-to-day jobs, my father was working at ENEL, that was the electricity company in Italy, and my mother was a teacher in kindergarten. Then after work, they were working at the farms helping my grandfathers that had a small farm producing olive oil, which is still the best olive oil in the world for me, and tomatoes and sage and rosemary. And so I was spending either time with them in the farm or basically when I had a computer, I started, you know, I couldn't go and meet any of my friends because my parents could not bring me around. And so I started just playing with the computer and coding and building things. I was always bad at art, but I was good in math. And so for me, coding was a way to be artistic and show to the world what I have in my brain and my mind rather than paint it on a canvas. I could just code it and show it in that way.
But there wasn't much that you could do with a computer back then, right? Both because computers weren't really developed a lot back then and the internet wasn't really picking off, but also because no one else that you knew probably had a computer, right? I mean, in this village, I remember when I was also growing up in a small village, my mom had a computer and then my best friend had a computer. We sent around emails, that was pretty much it. We couldn't even send pictures, that took way too long, you know. And you were probably even earlier. So what did you do? What were your first steps with the computer?
Well, I was connecting with very, very slow internet. And the problem is that, you know, I was already back then when you were connecting to the internet, no one could use the phone at home, right? So very different times. But I was on the bulletin boards first, you know, trying to get information because I really wanted to learn coding. Tried BASIC and then C. I'm still, till today, C is my preferred programming language.
Oh wow, you don't even like C++?
To me, C++ is almost worse. C is the perfection of a programming language. And probably I'm becoming old, that's why. But so in order to get the information to try to understand how to do it and how to code, and because I had only one book, right? My father bought one book that costed for him 60,000 Lira. That was a lot of money back then, and especially for, you know, we were not definitely a wealthy family. And so yeah, I needed to learn more and I needed to interact with people. So I was going on the BBS system and then eventually went on IRC. I spent a ton of time on IRC chatting with, you know, I was in hacking communities. I was writing also for some e-zines that were like the online magazines for the underground hacking community. I did it of course in Italian. And I participated to hack meetings over time, like there was the AIT, that was the Italian hack meeting from the year 2000, then 2002, 2004, 2006 I think, then I stopped. But I was eager, I was reading Phrack, that is one of the most popular e-zines, hacking e-zines. I mean, I was trying to find people online. And definitely there were not many Italians back then, especially in '95, '96, not many Italians. So it was mostly international. I was barely speaking English, I was trying to make myself understood. But yeah, it was an interesting, different times for sure.
And it was all learning by doing. So you never had a formal education on like computer science or informatics or anything like that, coding?
No, then I went to the computer science university, but it was very, very easy after that because I went when I was 18 years old, in 2003. Then I went to the computer science university and I basically actually I spent zero time in lessons. I was just giving exams and I spent my time in this lab, there was the Linux lab at the university where basically we would build computing clusters, Linux-based, in the laboratory. So I started using Linux, I think it was '95, '96, so it was early on. So I was very, very passionate. And so when I went to university, I immediately found the lab and I recruited myself in the lab and just getting out to do the exams and then going back to the lab. Because being at university back then also meant having good access to computers, like strong computers and the internet, basically, right? So that's why people went to the universities, not even to learn stuff, but to get the access.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember we had at university, there is the laboratory that I was part of, it was called GNU/Linux. So GNU has, you know, the GNU is not Unix, you know, the basically base tools built by Richard Stallman, and the kernel for Linux. Well, GNU/Linux was this Linux laboratory and was part of the parallel computing laboratory at the University of Genoa. And so we had a cluster of computers that, you know, we could sneak in and use from time to time. And it was very exciting because it was super expensive, it was incredibly expensive, especially for a small university. And so that was our toy and we could play with stuff. It was very, very exciting. I really remember my time in university with the passion and enthusiasm.
That's how it should be, right?
And so you always had this fascination for software development, code, etc., programming. But what about finance? Were you already interested in finance back then or did that come later? Of course, now you could be referred to as a fintech entrepreneur, right? It's even more probably about money than technology, or like both. So when did you get interested in finance as well?
I didn't know much about finance. So after university, I stayed at university for two years to be a researcher. So I worked on a highly resilient communication system for distress situations like catastrophes or war zones. That actually forged my mind. I always was passionate about all the catastrophes movies and all that, right? War Games was one of my preferred movies back in the late '80s, and then of course Hackers and Hackers 2. But so I always thought about technology as something that should help us in the worst moments of our life, you know, when you need something the most is probably when you are the weakest. And so I always thought about technology as something that should help us rather than put us in a cage. And what I discovered, what I started thinking back then, was that the technology that we built and humanity built is only built for the best-case scenario and never built for the worst-case scenario, while we should build for the worst-case scenario. And so this system, this highly resilient system for communications, helped me to design the next phase of my life. You know, whenever you are in a catastrophe situation like an apocalypse situation or in a war zone, your life depends on the system, right? So that's how I'm trained to think about issues and problems. Everything that I'm thinking still today is in these terms. Whenever I have to design anything, it's always about how I can do things that will resist to the wrath of God. That's how I like to express it. And so I spent two years at universities on this type of projects. And then, as many times happen, I mean, in Switzerland it's different, but in Italy at university you get paid 800 euros per month if you're lucky, and checks are always delayed. So I thought, I really like this stuff, but maybe I should look to bring my expertise in places where money is, and money is in finance. So I started learning about finance myself through coding. I started working actually for a Swiss company that requested a portfolio management system. And I started learning about everything about finance through coding. So what are equities, options, bonds, futures, all that, because I needed to build the system. So for me the math was easy. And so I started coding the portfolio management system with a couple of friends. And then after doing it and releasing a successful product, I realized that I could do that at scale. So I moved to London and built a company around this idea of having a scalable, cloud-based portfolio management system, very simple to use, very lightweight. And then that was 2012, 2013, and 2014 I became the, well, I actually met Giancarlo Devasini, the founder of Bitfinex, co-founder of Bitfinex, and the creator of Tether. And so, you know, I slowly started transitioning into Bitfinex.
And you just started as a pure software developer, like quote unquote nothing special, right? Just one of several software developers. And then you made your way up very quickly to becoming the CEO and CTO, right? Both for Bitfinex and Tether?
Well, I'm not the CEO of Bitfinex, I'm the CTO of Bitfinex, and CEO and I would say CTO of Tether. I'm very, very opinionated on technology.
So I think Elon Musk said you can't be the CTO, you can't do a good job as a CTO if you're not the CEO, or something like that. Like he said, the tech visionary needs to be the CEO, otherwise the company doesn't work, which I find really, really interesting. I'm not, for example, I'm not the tech guy in our company, but I'm the CEO, so I hope it still works out well. But yeah, I can completely understand that if you're opinionated, you need to be the CEO. And even if you were the tech guy, and it worked out very well, like how was this development going on within a very few years or even months from just being a software dev to becoming the CEO?
No, no, it took a few years. So first, you know, I joined Bitfinex end of 2014. Then I still had my startup. And I shut down my startup end of 2015 because it was clear. I promised only one hour per day to Bitfinex and then it became like 12 hours per day after just a couple of months. And so I was thinking, how the hell can I sustain my startup? I really want to work for Bitfinex. And so I decided to close my startup and focus on Bitfinex. And when I did that, Bitfinex was hacked in 2016, it was the 2nd of August 2016. And I already proved my skills in terms of tech. I was still a simple developer, but I was taking care only of the trading engine, the matching engine of the platform. And that's where I could put my expertise in terms of scalability and resiliency and all that at best use, plus my financial knowledge. And so I focused on the trading engine, matching engine until 2016. And also after that, but then in 2016, after, during the hack, I was asked to become the CTO. So I became the CTO of Bitfinex. Then in 2017, I became the CTO of Tether as well. And then in 2020, I started transitioning on more strategy and, you know, of course tax strategy, but in general overall strategy for the companies. And officially I became the CEO of Tether in 2023. So it took basically almost 10 years.
Okay, but in a certain way those 10 years feel like one day and 100 years, right? It's like crazy, right? It's like on one side, it was so compressed. Tether and Bitfinex together went through so many different events, from all the different attacks, all the different, you know, attacks from competitors, media, like all the different emergencies. Like every single day we were in a fight. And so it felt really ages, like centuries, and also feels like yesterday that I started. So the feeling is crazy.
Yeah, because you're passionate about it, because there's always something going on, it's like the minutes just fly. It's super crazy.
Would you have ever thought at the beginning when you made this transition that Tether would actually, like, financially become more successful than Bitfinex, which back then was very successful already?
If you ask me what was the biggest number that I could think for the market cap of Tether, it would have been between 100 million dollars and one billion, if I really wanted to try to brag about it.
Yeah, but so what is it now?
142. You post this number from time to time, right? I always, yeah, it's just, but it's crazy because the reason why Tether became so big is not because we were great in marketing or whatever, because we didn't have a marketing team until 2022. Our marketing team now is insanely good, like they are great, they are probably the best in the space. But the reality, the almost sad reality of why that number, 142 billion, is so high is because the world is going into a very difficult place now. So the more the world is in decline and is in decay, the more the USDT chart will increase. Because it means that the more national currencies, the more national economies will fail, the more USDT will grow, and eventually Bitcoin will grow, right? So we are a very Bitcoin-centered company. The way we see it is that not everyone, especially, you know, 99% of the population in the world still does not understand Bitcoin. They need education, they need to be held by hand. So Tether is investing a lot of resources in Bitcoin education. But the reality is that most of the people are not there yet, they are not ready yet. So that's why I think that now the USDT chart is growing so fast, because people need something better than their national currencies. Then the US dollar is not perfect at all, but is still much better than any other alternative in the fiat world, and apart maybe for the Swiss franc, but the Swiss franc is very small.
So when people, I think that, yeah, that is kind of a sad reality, because the success of your company is directly proportional to the success of entire economies. And, you know, I'm not happy about it, right? So I'm happy about the fact that we are giving and creating an opportunity for people, we are giving a lifeline to hundreds of millions of people that anyway are stuck in a bad situation. So thank God that there is USDT. But at the same time, if we are going to see the USDT chart going down, well, it could mean two things. One is that the world is healing and is becoming better and national economies are doing better, because people in these emerging markets will trust more and more their national currencies. But from what I'm seeing, it's very unlikely. Second is that the world is ready to move towards Bitcoin. So either way, either way, if eventually USDT will not be necessary, it will be a success.
I mean, and totally, I mean, you give, as you said at the beginning, this worst-case scenario, we're getting closer and closer. In many countries, we're getting the economies and the currencies getting closer and closer to this worst-case scenario. And that's what you have given, like the opportunity to then use the next best thing, which is US dollars, in a way that they already try now, right? All of these people in these countries try to use the US dollar, but it's with a lot of friction that they need to do it in a physical way with cash. And it's of course not digital, it's not borderless, inefficient, messy. And you give them a better tool for that, right? And so you can be proud, I think, that you know, you're doing something good for society. And in turn, you also got like, you amass these crazy amounts of cash as well, of money, because you're super profitable. Like, how many employees do you have?
