#1442 Paolo Ardoino | Bitcoin Is The Perfect Currency Says Tether CEO
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All right, next up, uh, we have follow who's a CEO of tether. Unfortunately, polo is not able to be here in person, so he is joining us remotely. They have an event that is going on in and switch. And willow, how are you?

I'm great. Can you hear me? Well.

I can hear you perfectly. You look amazing. You sound amazing. We're ready to learn from you in an ability.

Thank you for .

having me. Of course, maybe where we can start as tethers. Obviously, the dco who's CEO tether, much of this adoption and usage in ing in the use cases are the change in different geography.

Well, perfectly look amazed me. Our role .

as the .

point as as very, very important. We have polar who .

see together.

uh, tether is not selling and board the U.

S. moly. The reason .

for in the U. S.

there are fifteen .

and twenty thirty different ways to pay amazing, pay cash. More people have bag accounts, debit cards, credit cards. You know, even with debby cards.

My member .

is that one way dollars to be taken to set on on.

imagine try to go outside .

the .

and and .

you are up and stop anyone.

If you look amazing.

you and ask a simple question, would you prefer your little and ninety nine percent of the .

people who have follow.

there are five billion people in the .

word in high inflation countries. These are not that people .

that these are just people there are too poor of the interest perfectly. You look amazing. Um gene to a few commissions per year, one hundred two hundred dollars commission for year, the banks, in order for the banks to be. We had tears of abuse, ers and community. So only .

the last eight .

percent of against the U. S. Dollar in five years, or the sixth eight percent against the dollar.

And if you look at .

all those different environments, you as a company, company like title, you have to decide where you want to go, where you do want to pick your about those and onest other than fighting and go, uh uh, begins like fifty other different people. Methods in the in europe of the U. S.

You know we should go where there are people that don't have other options just because the the only option that they had before was just cash and cash is not very helpful when you won't to create the future for your family. And in a way I like to describe um you know trying if a stable condition would the sell you know stable coins into the U S. To me like trying to sell an ice bucket uh to an schema my later I could be controversial but you know my and you know I I never heard a person in world straight um you know complaining of the fact that they couldn't not move money from one account to another.

And you can hear an enormous number of people uh saying that today have at the end of the month, they don't have any way to store well if they don't have never had in their lives and saving account um a order check in account, right? So basic single things. We talk about financial inclusion.

We talk about, you know all these of things. But for for someone that looks at the emerging market feels like many companies that are talking about financial inclusion are doing me to just as a marketing beach. While with title, we are actually focused on, on those regions because are the ones that need our product the most.

I recently saw study that came out, I think was from your head economics. He said that there was three hundred and thirty million on chain users of tether and um that obvious ly doesn't account for people on the exchanges. And so do you have an estimate for how many users are using this? And then also h what numbers can you share in terms of transaction volumes are just signals as to how big this is now become.

Yeah so um we have see in more than ground and thirty million and uh wallets uh on chain, but there are cancel millions of people that are using U S. Only on the exchange. So they will not pop up on the block chain analysis.

And if you think about people that live in in the in the emerge, they honestly, they don't care about the which block chain. They don't care if you they don't get strong. They need just to teach at a dollar, because for them the dollar are is the best currency in the world and is actually the best current fear, the currency in the world, right? The best.

The work we all know that speak going now the others really bugging um sophistic c is that uh film grade uh is our head of economics and the form achieve economies in aliis um evaluated um also what is th Epace o f g row o f n ew w allets a nd u ser j ob u sdt。 On chain alone, again, it's harder when he comes to sentiment ze change. But on chain we are seeing more than thirty million the new wallets per quarter.

And I trust me, I team many times were reviewed a number because IT blew my mind. So the number of usdt wallets are growing and repeating my myself at thirteen more than thirteen million yond, it's almost instant. And I asked me myself why this is happening, and unfortunately, kind of a sad realization.

This is happening because the, the, the, the success and the growth, and this is almost periodic growth of adoption of usdt across emerging mark developing countries is directly proportional to the failure of many economies around the world. And sure. I mean, if you are have the private company, h IT brings good value, good numbers.

But to the feeling that we have and h you know, it's a it's not great because he means that there is something that actually is not working in the world. And lucky we are providing option. So i'm glad that theories around providing option and I fine, too many communities, but IT means that the work is that being attempted at the current to state of the global finance is not very healthy.

So one of the things that surprised me as I looked more and more into the stable coin market is just how much institutions are either already using stable coins or trying to use stable coins. I think the story historically has been like these are individuals exclusively using this technology. Talk a little about institutional adoption. What are these people doing at these organizations with stable coins? And do you see the stable coin eventually becoming the dominant preferred method for moving money for institutions?

But I think that one of the most interesting trends of stable coins is going to be and is is is being already now it's adoption on by commodation ors um for international trade. Uh the view to beat is that the table going start running all transfer into transport layer locations. The beautiful of rejection is that information store there cannot be, can cancel.

You cannot, whatever you do IT will remain like that for IT for the rest of at the time, for the rest of time. So um you know sometimes when you use banking rails, uh, information is a pig, uh can be changed, can be temper with with blockin. You cannot do that. And russians are faster, are cheaper as a much Better way to move money uh is more efficient and um so is is definitely one of the winning case cross for their payments and commodity trading by by cotton selling cotton you know oil and so is gonna be very stable points are going to be a fundamental part of that action volume.

One of the questions I continue to get from people and um my brain is too small to figure this out so hopefully you can help us is, uh, okay I believe that stable coins are going to be much bigger in the future.

How do I make money off the trend? Because in most areas in cyp do if I think that bitcoin is going to be bigger by by bitcoin, if I think a smart contract platform is going be bigger by by that token, a stable coin is worth only one dollar. And so um most people would love to be an investor in your business. You seem to have a great business with lots of profit, probably one of the best businesses in the world. But what are the other ways that you think people can benefit as investors from the rise of stable points?

I think, well, definitely um that either had has a great business, but we believe in in this business for ten years. I think, uh, you know how many chAllenges is and you attack that we have and you know controversy and so on. The good thing about our company is that we we stay focus right, of course, now that works. Everyone wants to be to jump the bandwagon and is understanding right. So I thinks you know the future will uh will bring so many different stable coins with different flavors and options and I think is great and very Young LED that the technology that that created ten years ago is now being used by central banks uh or potentially you know banks, regional banks um and is actually creating new opportunities.

I think that think about just the americans business when in in generally, if you think about the emerge markets about ping our countries around between ten and twenty percent of their GDP, israel encies, and that the opportunity there is actually to real technology that leverage stable coin to removal the unnecessary interview from equation of intensities having a lot of money to the four people that, for example, you know they have imagine a person lives in that lives in Philippines and or has family Philippine and go to europe to work and a crew some money over the month to try to send part of that money back to the Philippines to have the family, that is the concept importances. So already put yourself in the shoes of person that works, spend entire months and years, and here are far from the family. So this person now is charged five, six and twenty percent to send money on a digital leger because money, or most of IT, is already is really left 到。 So these people, I have charged a lot of money and in a fair way.

So I think that the next step for entrepreneurs is really leveraging what the new opportunity that bring that, that the simple coins are breaking in to create actually program possible money that serves different use cases. And said from maenius growth, order payments, commodity trading, trading online, global effects, markets on chain and the opportunities are actually endless. Um there also again h the I see many other simple coin's uh trying different things. For example, there are civil coins that are looking to h provide or share the yield from um from the investments back to uh the ders in my opinion is battery sky because you could need to consider uh that specific stable coin as security. I know that some of our competitors doing IT um and but I know that people are point being is that people are trying different different approaches because see inside like a very, very hard topic um this uh the profit to ability of analyst stable coin when we .

mentioned that you have a great business and maybe one of the best businesses in the world. My back of the afgan math as you do something like sixty million dollars in profit per employee, which would put you at a sixty x metric of some of the greatest technology company like facebook, google, lettera. Uh, so you guys make a lot of money of a very small team relative to the performance there. Uh, there's many people both in this room and globally who would love to be a shareholder and tedder. Uh, is there any plans for you to ever go public or somehow allow for people to participate the equity of tethers?

Well, um I don't want to be popular. Uh, I think that one of I think the company should go public when you know they have problem in or they need to access capital so they need to increase you know the size the company and they want to invest in the company and actually so they go public to have a Better access to that type liquid to me matter made in the last two years two thousand million in profits um of which um most of the profits the vast majority we past remain in the company and went into further investments to create these national networks, to purchase these national neural networks, also investing other areas from artificial intelligence and by the way, all outside of the resource.

Right so these investments are outside all the pressure of the stable point. Just to be clear now the point of going public to me is that, you know, I think that catered to me is the ones in h one years. Opportunity is a company that is a very is run by people that love bitcoin is run by people that love freedom. They love we love um the coconut independence in this intermediation and events. So being public feels to me that IT will empire our ability to move fast to take the siege disruptive or the state to school and for the establishment of the traditional financial work.

So no, I like, uh, the liberty that gives me to not have to, you know, be worried about the, you know, the trade that will get after three months or every reporter by analysts that don't see my vision and they don't have my passion to trying to help the Young bank, the hundreds of millions of minutes of one bank in the world. That is my primary concern. Look, I mean, ten years ago, title started with a simple idea.

And if you have, you know, but told me back then that we would become so big, I would, I would know, ask you if where you know, you know, a mental, because if no one could predict this, this, this growth and this rapid grow. And we are very contents of of ourselves that a that that we made glass is much more important than mission that we have. And you know the fact that with the learnings that we had from the stable coin, from U.

S. A, T, but also from big coin, we can implement them in other aspects that the technology from the telephonically, the delegate icon social media is also intermediate for most bark is completely unnecessary um intermediation um education is to intermediate, uh artificial intelligence or israel body size and international very intermediate. And so I think that the learning that we had on from big point and and the U S D T.

And a success we had, I can be reproposed and applied to different years. And so that's why I want to remain independent and keep focus because it's the right thing to do, especially for all the countries that are don't have the same lack of the U. S. And europe.

one of the things you said that may surprise people are your big supporter of bitcoin. I think people look at encrypt if you are involved with a coin or a chain. There's a little bit tribal ism. There's a little bit competition that goes on. Um but you all don't just talk about being supporters of bitcoin. Uh, we don't have enough time to list all of the things you all have done for bitcoin funding of developers eua, but talk a little bit as to the relationship you've see moving forward between bitcoin and kind of the store of value and unstable coins like tether.

Big going to me is the perfect currency right IT for especially in last fifty years um money has been governed by humans away, right.

So especially after nineteen thousand seven one when um um the goal backing was removed from the skies, um we have seen um over and over uh different decision makers taking decisions, monetary and policy decisions on how to change you know the effects of of like money, Green team and some and to me because is um the is money is the only formal currency governed my mom right in in our our university we have two things that are pretty solid. One is physics. But even physics, right there is a difference.

There is quantum physics and there is the general real T V T. And we don't know yet how the two things could come together. So still with physics we have some, uh, 嗯嗯， we don't understand, but math is different, right? We can prove mop and the cadoc of this mop, and we know that mop is there.

And he is perfect and can resist to the rap of god. So is not the subject and is not dependent from the change of humor and and me and and interests of of humans. So at least ast, we need to have at least one certainty our life.

And when you come comes to protecting wells for for service wealth, and that is big now as a big bit point of propulsion, we go around the world and we do education. The the other things is that most of the people like that we talk to in import countries, they don't have and right, so they don't have the time of us sticks in our way to understand bitcoin, understand implication and and and understand how this works. But they can understand one thing very well that the U.

S. Solar is back to their time. So what we are thinking about is how we can, anyway, they use U. S. T. As a way to on board people on the digital wallet and over time guide them you know through education towards big going the best doctors in the world.

My last question for you is um you're not a central bank, you're not a country, but you have a lot of people who are holding dollars. There is a strong argument. You are increasing dollar dominance globally. Uh, stable coin issues collectively have become one of the top fifteen or sixteen buyers of treasurer and so has become kind of a net new buyer, which is really important to the U. S. Government that wants to sell dead but there's a lot of people who would say, you know, why isn't the government just nationalized, whether it's circle or tedder or named popular a stable coin, what do you think the relationship between nation state central banks and stable coin issues will be moving forward? And if you were in one of these countries in opposition of influence, or what would you do as you see the rise of stable coins?

Well, if it's about baLance, so when when you are a small coin, sure like like tatter, you'll ask yourself questions. You of course, you need to be a situation where you are helpful and you are net positive for the world and also you are net positive for governments. Um as of today, for example, uh we have around one hundred bill in U S charger's.

We are not, we are not the country, but if you are, country will be the eighteen, the country in the world for how many tbs we treasures. We, we all. And I think that another functionality and that we prove to the world actually not many, not many. Think about this, the this feature of usdt is that we know how china, for example, sold many tvs in the last a few years, from two, three years dollars to now less than a hundred day anything.

And and you know the one of those these issues that that situation presently leaves the fact that usually with governments holding other governments foreign ments building your own debt, you have um single decision makers deciding to breath about ton and start decreasing their exposure to um for the U S. that. Um the interesting thing that the U S A D created is actually the this intelligence of the decision making of selling the U S.

For every person that is in argentina, every person that is in turkey that are holding or buying U S. T we take them and would buy a piece of. But will not take the decision altogether to sell them, sell their U S D or the that hands to dispose of the U S step.

So the level resilient that usdt is bringing to um the U S dollar and the U S. That is unprecedented. So that is one of the least um understudy features to me um and me and but is also one of the best um when you would have on the other side.

So we are helpful to U S. Uh but on the other side, you know there is the argument to that um course other countries where that the where the population are using U S A T A lot um might feel in a different way um so they might um they might be upset that there is expand dollar dominance. But the reality that you know people are looking for always for Better alternatives there.

In the poor countries, people trying to buy gold chains or you know gold dreams or whatever, they people will always trying to find a way protect their themselves and their families from from um inflation and very local currency. So we I have personally and as a group, we had so many discussions with central banks and the minister finance of the emerging markets. And actually, they were very, very excited because on one side, you could see how people in these countries are turning to U.

S, B, T to have an edge against uh inflation. But on the other side, the amount of meta es that are being sent into these countries in U S. Ity is enormous. We are seen that already at percentage on average that is above um four percent to below ten percent, usually of dollar reinstate cities that are going in on a early basis now uh on into emerging markets is ready on U S T. So if you want to see the reason why U S A is so big is not about to replicating in more or is actually you know is is becoming the transport to wealth across continent.

Well, thank you so much for telling time to do this. I know you guys have a huge event going on yourselves. And so, uh, I think that from everyone here also thank you for the work you guys have done, not only getting stable coins into the hands of hundreds of months of people, but also all the work you've done around bitcoin. Uh, you guys probably deserve more credit than you get. So we appreciate .

thank you home. Thank you very much for having.