Reluctant To Lay Off, Crypto Company Tether Will Add 200 Employees

JAKARTA - Tether, a leading stablecoin publisher, plans to double the number of its employees by mid-2025. This step was taken as an effort to strengthen compliance with increasingly strict regulatory laws. This ambitious plan was conveyed by the CEO of Tether Holdings Ltd., Paolo Ardoino, in his recent interview with Bloomberg.

According to Ardoino, Tether will add staff to reach a total of 200 employees, especially in the financial department which currently manages about US$115.5 billion (Rp1,848 trillion). Ardoino also stated that the company is committed to remaining efficient in its operations, although there will be an increase in the number of employees. We are very proud of our efficiency and we want to remain efficient because flexibility is key in this industry," he said.

Tether is also trying to tighten surveillance of illegal activities involving its stablecoin products in the secondary market. Ardoino stressed the importance of using various automation tools in monitoring suspicious activities.

Tether itself has confirmed its position as a financial giant, with the latest financial reports showing a profit of 5.2 billion US dollars (Rp83.2 trillion) in the first half of 2024. This achievement was obtained although the number of Tether employees is relatively small compared to other virtual asset service providers such as Coinbase and Binance.

In July, Tether frozen the address of the Tron network that stores about 29.62 million USDT (Rp474 billion), allegedly linked to Huione Guarantee, an online marketplace used by fraud operators in Southeast Asia. Earlier, in May 2024, Tether announced a partnership with blockchain data security platform Chainalysis to develop a secondary market activity monitoring tool involving illegal funds.

In an interview with Forbes, Ardoino revealed that the company's profits had exceeded its original expectations. Since serving as CEO, Ardoino has led Tether to develop more than just stablecoin publishers. The company has invested more than $2 billion in the last two years across various startups, including the Northern Data Group and Bitdeer Technologies Group, a US-listed technology company.

Going forward, Tether plans to continue to make bold investments in areas such as artificial intelligence and telecommunications, as part of its long-term strategy.