Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reveals some of the stablecoin firm’s recent investments in a variety of sectors, ranging from Bitcoin mining, TradFi to payments for commodity trades.
During ann interview at the Emergence Conference in Prague on Dec. 5, Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether (USDT) has made more than $13 billion in profits. Tether currently has more than $135 billion in market cap and more than $6 billion in additional excess equity. Those funds are used to expand on Tether’s ever-growing stablecoin investment portfolio.
“When the stable coin and the rest has been invested outside the preservers as a separate point of view from a separate company, called Tether investments have been invested in different areas,” said Ardoino.
One of those areas is Bitcoin (BTC) mining. Ardoino revealed that he and the Tether team are “big fans” of Bitcoin mining and would like to actively participate in securing Bitcoin’s finite supply so that it does not become too decentralized. He admitted that Tether has invested in Bitcoin mining firms in smaller countries as well as in Central and South America.
“With Bitcoin, we cannot rely on two or three companies to mine, to be 90% miners. And so we need to add additional forces from across the world to make Bitcoin safe. So that’s one of our main immature investments,” said Ardoino.
Another area of interest for Tether is TradFi and coin trading. He said that Tether has initiated a few deals in the TradFi world and has acted as “a short term lender” for people in different operations.
In addition, Ardoino said that Tether has been exploring the use of Tether for cross-border payments, specifically in commodity trading. He believes stablecoins can become a “game-changer” in the field of commodity trade as it can simplify the payment process immensely.
Compared to regular credit transfers that usually take longer, USDT arrives much faster after being sent through the blockchain, and the payment will be confirmed in only a matter of seconds.
“So that’s one of the areas where we are planning to dedicate a lot of resources because we can see how the USDT could be a game-changer,” said Ardoino.
In addition, Tether has also been investing in a range of “small companies all around the world,” Ardoino added, with many of them located in developing countries within emerging markets. Other investments that Tether has continued from past dealings are the brain-computer interface tech company Blackrock Neurotech and AI infrastructure firm Northern Data Group.