Is Tether Launching a New Dollar Stablecoin Just to Annoy Washington? 😂💸

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At the edge of another American summer, with the sun rising on the Potomac and the air heavy with the scent of ambition, the venerable Paolo Ardoino—master of Tether, that most notorious issuer of ‘stable’ coins—has whispered to CNBC his grand design: the birth, perhaps this very year, of a dollar-worthy stablecoin to be swaddled in the star-spangled embrace of the United States itself.

One senses Ardoino’s urgency by the gusto with which he courts the labyrinthine corridors of Washington, D.C., where laws bloom and wilt with the speed of mushrooms after rain. The winds, he observes, are blowing favorably for those who peg their fates, and fortunes, to crypto—especially with certain men who once enjoyed the comforts of the White House and continue to cast their shadows over Capitol Hill.

At the Token2049 symposium—held, naturally, in Dubai, far from the meddling nostrils of American regulators—Ardoino laid out the separation between this new project and the well-galloped mare that is USDT. Whether the U.S. version breaks into this world by December’s end or lingers, lounging in legislative limbo until the new year, depends, as with all things American, on the appetite of lawmakers for drama.

Tether’s dance in Washington

Mr. Ardoino has become quite the socialite in Washington, exchanging pleasantries over sandwiches with Senator Bill Hagerty and sipping coffee behind finely polished doors with various lawmakers. One wonders if he’s tempted them with promises of eternal blockchain or simply more efficient election fundraising.

His efforts seem conveniently timed alongside the much-touted GOP’s GENIUS Act—a name so flattering it could only have been crafted during a Friday afternoon brainstorm—which would make life easier for foreign stablecoin wranglers who vow, hand over heart, to play nicely with local sheriffs.

Tether itself, always fond of faraway lands, maintains its residence in El Salvador, not far from the humid drama of Miami and even closer to regulatory nostalgia. You may recall, dear reader, that some years past they paid a handsome sum—$18.5 million—to the state of New York, not for entrance to a ball, but to sweep aside claims about the mysterious reservoirs of their precious coins.

Today, they insist (with a straight face, no doubt) that they cradle around $120 billion in U.S. Treasuries, watched over by the eagle-eyed folks at Cantor Fitzgerald. Their Q1 audit—always a page-turner—shows a slight slimming in their excess reserves, from $7 billion to $5.6 billion. Perhaps someone bought lunch.

With exquisite timing, Tether’s American adventure coincides with rumors of Eric and Donald Trump Jr. lusting after their own dollar-pegged bauble. If coincidence were a coin, surely it would be a stable one. The scene is set, ladies and gentlemen, for a grand stablecoin duel, starring the world’s leading practitioners of optimism, persuasion, and the creative use of spreadsheets. 🥳🤑

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2025-05-02 16:54