Tether Prepares for US Stablecoin Launch

Tether reportedly aims to match the success it has seen with stablecoins in other countries with the new token it plans to launch in the United States.

During an interview on Bloomberg Television, Bo Hines, strategic advisor for digital assets and United States strategy at Tether, and leader of its planned new token, said Tether wants to be “the largest player in the U.S. market.”

“We already are abroad and we want to match that here,” Hines said, according to a Tuesday (Sept. 16) report by Bloomberg.

Hines said two of the customers Tether aims to serve in the U.S. are consumers who are underbanked or underserved and enterprise clients, including banks, per the report.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said during the interview that one of Tether’s advantages is that it has its own distribution channels, which it has built over the last 11 years.

Ardoino also said that Tether does not plan to go public, adding that it made $13.7 billion in profit last year and does not need the capital, according to the report.

“I don’t want to spend the next three months in every single quarter of my life trying to explain to analysts why we are not optimizing to make two cents more,” Ardoino said, per the report.

Tether announced Friday (Sept. 12) that it plans to launch a U.S.-regulated dollar-backed stablecoin called USAT and that it appointed Hines, the former executive of the White House Crypto Council, to lead the effort.

The company said USAT will be designed to comply with the recently enacted U.S. stablecoin law, the GENIUS Act, and will provide businesses and institutions with a digital alternative to cash and traditional payment rails.

Tether’s existing stablecoin, USDT, is the most traded cryptocurrency by volume around the world.

Ardoino said in the Friday announcement that Tether has been issuing USDT for over a decade and that the token is used by hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets.

It was reported in July that while Tether works to return to doing business in the U.S., it will continue to focus on its stablecoin in emerging markets.