USDT's Largest Stablecoin Is Suspected To Be Only Controlled By People

JAKARTA - Tether's CTO Paolo Ardoino has denied investigative reports from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) highlighting that USDT is controlled by a number of people alone. On Thursday 2 February, WSJ published an investigative report revealing the USDT stablecoin ownership.

This is one of many reports leading to Tether as the USDT stablecoin publisher with a market cap of more than $68 billion. Currently USDT is the largest stablecoin in the world, surpassing its competitors USDC and BUSD.

The report refers to investigations carried out by the New York Attorney General and the Federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2021. Reports from the WSJ revealed the previously unknown ownership structure of Tether.

The USDT Tether stablecoin is an important part of crypto world infrastructure and is the largest stablecoin often used to exchange other cryptocurrencies.

According to a WSJ report, Tether started by a separate company led by Brock▁kendala and former plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini. Devasini also helped build the Bitfinex crypto exchange and is currently his chief financial officer. Devasini owns 43 percent of Tether's shares in 2018.

Two other executives from Bitfinex and Tether, namely Chief Advisor Stuart Hoegner and CEO Jean-Louis van Der Velde, each hold a 15 percent stake in Tether. The fourth owner is a businessman named Christopher Harborne from England who holds a 13 percent stake in Tether.

Tether's stability is often questioned in the crypto world. Several previous reports claim that Tether does not have sufficient reserves to sustain USDT's circulating asset liquidity. Although Tether's founders have denied the allegations, they are not yet open about their company's operations.

Although there have been several allegations against Tether, the company managed to survive during its receding days in the crypto world. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Tether's assets are slightly higher than the circulating Tether value." This condition is considered very vulnerable to losses.

Last year, Tether's USDT stablecoin experienced de-pegging or value despite the US dollar stakes on two occasions, when Terra collapsed in May 2022 and the FTX exchange in November 2022. At that time, there was a massive withdrawal in the crypto world. However, USDT managed to recover and stabilize again.

Responding to the WSJ article, CTO Tether, Paolo Ardoino said "The more articles that question Tether, the more Tether grows. People understand that Tether stands for freedom and inclusion, this angers the skeptics. In the end, the truth will beat negative opinion," he said.