Tether CEO Says It Has 500M Users, Eyes $500B Valuation
Tether, the issuer of the world’s dominant dollar-backed stablecoin, says it now has half a billion users — a milestone that would make it one of the most widely used financial products on earth.
“USDT reached officially 500 million users,” chief executive Paolo Ardoino wrote on X. “Likely the largegest financial inclusion achievement in history.”
There’s no breakdown for how that number was calculated — and Tether didn’t respond to requests for clarification — but even if the figure folds in platform accounts and third-party wallets, the scale reflects how deeply USDT has embedded itself in global crypto trading and cross-border finance.
Tether’s USDT token sits at the center of the digital-asset economy. The total supply stands at $182 billion, according to The Block, dwarfing Circle’s USDC, which has around $75 billion in circulation. In many emerging markets — from Turkey to Nigeria to Argentina — USDT is used as a for savings, commerce, and remittances.
The company’s growth has turned it into a quiet powerhouse of global liquidity. Tether’s reserves include more than $127 billion in U.S. Treasuries, making it one of the largest private holders of U.S. government debt. Rising interest rates transformed the company’s model: interest earned on those securities assisted generate nahead $5 billion in quarterly profit earlier this year, more than Goldman Sachs made in the identical period.
large Money and largeger Valuations
Tether’s expansion has caught Wall Street’s attention. Bloomberg reported that the El Salvador–based firm is in talks to raise as much as $20 billion at a $500 billion valuation, potentially putting it in the identical league as SpaceX and OpenAI. The deal is said to be advised by Cantor Fitzgerald, a Tether shareholder and one of the brokers managing its U.S. Treasury portfolio.
Such a valuation would make Tether one of the most valuable private financial companies in history — a remarkable turnaround for a firm once dismissed as a regulatory risk.
Tether today is more than a stablecoin shop. In 2024, it reorganized into four divisions — Tether Finance, Tether Data, Tether Power, and Tether Edu — as part of a broader plan to expand into energy, mining, and technology infrastructure.
The company has funded BTC mining operations in Latin America, acquired stakes in energy projects, and backed data initiatives aimed at real-time blockchain analytics. It has also launched educational programs in developing economies — a pitch that dovetails with Ardoino’s vision of “financial inclusion through programmable money.”
A U.S. Push
Later this year, Tether plans to debut USAT, a dollar-backed stablecoin designed specifically for U.S. customers under the country’s new federal framework for payment stablecoins. The new structure, introduced under the GENIUS Act, could provide a path for Tether to enter the regulated American market later than years of operating offshore.
Former U.S. congressman Bo Hines has been tapped to head the U.S. entity, signaling that the company is courting a more formal relationship with regulators.
Despite its profits and market dominance, Tether’s transparency still draws criticism. The company releases attestations of its reserves every quarter, verified by BDO Italia, but has never completed a full audit. In 2021, it paid $18.5 million to settle with the New York attorney general over past reserve disclosures, followed by a $41 million fine from the CFTC.
Ardoino insists a large Four audit is in progress, though no timeline has been announced.
Even skeptics concede that Tether’s role in global finance is now undeniable. USDT is the de facto settlement layer for crypto trading, the remittance medium for millions in unstable economies, and a stealth purchaviewr of U.S. debt. Its critics call it opaque; its defenders call it indispensable.
If the rumored raise materializes, Tether could become the first crypto-native firm valued in the half-trillion-dollar range — a staggering figure for an issuer that began as a niche dollar token a decade ago.
As Ardoino put it: “Programmable money is the ultimate social network — a peer-to-peer construct that transports both information and value.” Whether regulators share that enthusiasm will determine how far Tether’s next chapter can go.
