E143: USDT Founder: Bitcoin, Gold, Stablecoin, & Tether, the Most Profitable Company in the World

Unknown Source October 15, 2025 35 min

artificial-intelligence startup investment

🎧 Listen to Original

32 Companies

46 Key Quotes

3 Topics

1 Insights

🎯 Summary

Podcast Episode E143: USDT Founder Summary

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether (USDT issuer) and CTO of Bitfinex, focusing on Tether’s massive profitability, its underlying philosophy, and its broader mission to bring stability to the world through accessible technology.

1. Focus Area

The discussion centers on Cryptocurrency/Stablecoins, specifically the business model, technological infrastructure, and societal impact of Tether (USDT). Secondary themes include the philosophy of building profitable, mission-driven technology companies, the importance of financial accessibility, and the role of technology in global stability.

2. Key Technical Insights

Stablecoin Utility: Stablecoins like USDT are framed as the “ultimate social network” because money transfer is the most fundamental form of human interaction, offering value and information transfer simultaneously.
UX Deficiencies in Blockchain: Ardoino highlights that current blockchain technology often suffers from poor user experience (UX), citing the example that moving USDT on Ethereum often requires holding and paying gas fees in ETH, which hinders mass adoption outside of speculative circles.
Focus on Utility over Hype: Tether’s success is positioned as proof that building genuinely useful, real-world applications (like borderless digital dollars) is more sustainable than focusing solely on hype, meme coins, or internal ecosystem incentives.

3. Market/Investment Angle

Unprecedented Profitability: Tether is generating approximately $100 million in profit per employee annually, driven significantly by high interest rates on its reserves (a factor less present before 2022). They made $13.7 billion last year.
Profit Reinvestment Philosophy: Approximately 95% of Tether’s profits are reinvested into new ideas and technologies rather than being distributed to shareholders, signaling a long-term commitment to expanding their mission beyond stablecoins.
Capital as Strategic Advantage: Ardoino believes Tether possesses the rare trifecta of Philosophy, Innovation, and Capital. This capital allows them to pursue their vision without being derailed by external VC incentives that often force companies to prioritize short-term profit over long-term mission.

4. Notable Companies/People

Paolo Ardoino (CEO of Tether/CTO of Bitfinex): The central figure, detailing his obsessive work ethic (sleeping only five fragmented hours nightly) and his passion for coding, which he views as his primary form of creative expression.
Tether (USDT): Described not just as a stablecoin company, but as a “stable company” whose ultimate goal is societal stability.
Plasma: Mentioned as a company Tether invested in, focused on building single-purpose blockchains designed to make stablecoin transfers cheaper and easier, improving UX.

5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion

While not a deep dive into specific regulations, the discussion implies a regulatory context by emphasizing that Tether’s mission is to democratize finance for the unbanked and those in high-inflation economies (like Turkey, Nigeria, Argentina). The success of USDT is seen as filling a void left by traditional, inaccessible finance.

6. Future Implications

Expansion Beyond Finance: Tether intends to leverage its capital and technological innovation to intermediate and open up other industries, including telecommunications, social media, and energy.
Mission-Driven Growth: The company’s incentive structure is unique: the more Tether pushes for openness, decentralization, and financial freedom, the more profitable it becomes, contrasting sharply with traditional “walled garden” tech companies.
Investment in Safe Assets: Tether plans to continue investing a portion of its profits into “safe assets” like Bitcoin, Gold, and Land as the world moves toward “darker times.”

7. Target Audience

This episode is highly valuable for Crypto/Web3 Professionals, Fintech Investors, and Technology Strategists. It offers direct insight into the operational philosophy and strategic direction of one of the most critical infrastructure providers in the digital asset space.

🏢 Companies Mentioned

dog with hats ✅ nft/gaming

Peter Thiel ✅ n/a (Investor/Author)

Probably I ✅ unknown

Peter Thiel ✅ unknown

Bitwise Asset Management ✅ unknown

United States ✅ unknown

And Argentina ✅ unknown

And Nigeria ✅ unknown

National Energy Company ✅ unknown

Central America ✅ unknown

And I ✅ unknown

If I ✅ unknown

So I ✅ unknown

But I ✅ unknown

When Shift Happens ✅ unknown

💬 Key Insights

"There is an interesting statistic, 67% of all the transactions that move USDT on blockchain, only send USDT."

Impact Score: 10

"Blockchain technology in the last many years has focused itself on maybe the wrong incentives and the wrong things. So it was much more important for blockchain developers to be able to have a blockchain with a lot of hype and the ability to list meme coins as fast as possible, dog with hats and things like that."

Impact Score: 10

"Internet without access to finance doesn't matter. Even if you can browse Amazon and you can buy anything that's there is no point."

Impact Score: 10

"Stablecoins are important because there have been young people in the world who don't have access to finance. Um, they are... they are the ones that live in high inflation countries."

Impact Score: 10

"The more, so actually the more we work in that direction [openness, decentralization], the more we can become profitable. That's why I define Tether as the once-in-a-century company, not because I want to be cocky or arrogant... it's the fact that Tether is the only company that the more it pushes for open-source, for openness, for decentralization, for all that, the more it makes money."

Impact Score: 10

"I think we are building Tether among the best technology for telecommunications, for social media, and a few other areas including energy and so on. And so we want to devote our resources in this intermediating many other industries and make them open, accessible, like what we did with the USDT and finance."

Impact Score: 10

📊 Topics

#artificialintelligence 50 #startup 2 #investment 1