LUGANO, Switzerland — Tether, the crypto company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT is planning new investments to bring its US-focused US dollar stablecoin to a 100 million US user base, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an interview on Friday.
The USAT token, designed specifically for the U.S. market to comply with federal regulations set by the GENIUS Act requirements, is set to launch in December, Ardoino said. It is issued by Tether America, a joint venture between Tether and regulated US crypto bank Anchorage Digital.
A key element for Tether to distribute the upcoming token is Rumble (RUM), the video-sharing platform Tether invested $775 million in last year, and its upcoming crypto-wallet, also due out later this year. Rumble alone has 51 million active monthly users in the U.S. that could potentially onboard USAT tokens, Ardoino said.
“We’re investing in two or three companies that would bring that number from 51 million to 100 million,” he said.
Without naming specific firms, he said investment targets could include social media companies, content platforms similar to Rumble, as Tether aims to position its USAT token for payments in the creator economy.
“For the US market, you need to create a more professional and digital approach to money that can compete with PayPal and so on,” he said. “The beauty is that we already have a user base that would spend that money in the economy […] so the offer will be unmatched.”
“We’re going to hit the ground running and we’re going to start taking market share from our competitors who were the ones who tried to kill us in the first place,” Ardoino said.
Read more: Tether Unveils USAT Stablecoin for US Market, Appoints Bo Hines to Lead New Division
Gold rush
Tether, while still mainly focused on emerging markets where access to dollars is limited, has benefited from rapid stablecoin adoption, supported in part by regulatory advances such as the GENIUS Act in the US, which allows digital tokens to become more embedded in global payments. The firm’s flagship token USDT rose to a supply of $182 billion, growing by a third since the start of the year and dominating the roughly $300 billion asset class. Circles (CRCL) token is currently number two at $72 billion, growing about 70% this year.
Meanwhile, the company’s other token, the physical gold-backed also rose over the past few months as the yellow metal soared to new records. XAUT’s market size rose to a record $2.2 billion, more than tripling since the start of the year.
This growth comes largely from retail demand, Ardoino said.
“We’re seeing retail in Central and South America and Asia piling up now, starting to learn about tokenized gold,” he said. Due to the retail frenzy for gold, market makers also increasingly used tokenized gold as they could sell it in secondary markets for a wider spread with CME futures on the other side of the trade.
Nasdaq-listed firm Prestige Wealth recently raised $150 million, anchored by bitcoin lender Analpha, to hoard Tether’s tokenized gold, which also increases demand.
Read more: Tether unveils synthetic AI dataset to democratize STEM intelligence
