Long regarded as an impending black swan, Tether has successfully weathered out the contagion and bank runs caused by Luna’s collapse in the depths of the 2022-2023 bearmarket. Since then, a large portion of Tether’s reserves has been shifted to treasury bills, which are the closest dollar proxy, positioning Tether among the top 20 holders of T-bills, worldwide. However, navigating the Tether FUD was not the first rodeo for Paolo Ardoino, as he has also previously led Bitfinex, which successfully recovered after a $72M hack, back in 2016. The worldwide adoption of USDT, especially in emerging markets and developing economies, serves as a testament to Tether’s commitment to create a product with tangible real-life applications.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Paolo’s background
• How Bitfinex succeeded
• DEX vs. CEX UX
• Entrepreneurship and company culture
• Founding Tether and its use cases
• Expanding Tether’s cross-chain support
• Tether’s reserves and long-term vision
• Stablecoin wars: BUSD & USDC
• Decentralized stablecoins and bank runs
• The potential of diversifying physical backing
• Holepunch & Keet - the P2P renaissance
• Incentivising P2P interactions

Episode links:

• Paolo Ardoino on Twitter
• Tether on Twitter
• Bitfinex on Twitter
• Holepunch on Twitter
• Keet on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst.