← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
"The REAL Battle For Bitcoin & Stables Is Just Getting Started" | Paolo Ardoino & Bo Hines
00:44:10
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- [00:00]
Scott
If you think Tether is just a stablecoin company, this conversation is going to completely change how you see the future of money. In this interview, Paulo Arduino breaks down why Tether is launching a new US focused stablecoin called usat. How regulation has finally caught up to technology.
- [00:16]
Paolo Arduino
We built a technology and we sit on it for 11 years before seeing the world recognizing it. And so.
- [00:22]
Scott
And why? Stablecoins are no longer a niche crypto experiment. They're becoming core financial infrastructure.
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Paolo Arduino
Today we have 536 million users. It's not anymore about something that a couple of geeks are using. Well, it was never about that. Right. It was hundreds of millions of people around the world using USDT as their digital dollar.
- [00:44]
Scott
But then Bo Hinds explains the part nobody in finance wants to say out loud. This isn't crypto versus banks anymore. The real battle is about liquidity, distribution and who becomes the rails of the next financial system.
- [00:58]
Bo Hinds
A lot of folks that have really wanted to enter the Tether ecosystem from the US have been looking for a vehicle to do that and that's what USAT provides. But it unlocks this network of liquidity and distribution for folks here that they've been clamoring for access for, for years, but they just haven't had, they haven't been able to participate in. And so eventually you're just going to see basically stablecoin sandwiches built. Deposits will be tokenized, everything will be moving through stables.
- [01:19]
Scott
But this conversation goes way beyond money. Paolo explains why Tether isn't just building financial products, they're building AI infrastructure, decentralized telecommunications and peer to peer energy systems designed for the billions of people who've.
- [01:31]
Interviewer
Been locked out of traditional systems.
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Scott
If you want to understand where money, banking and technology are actually headed straight from the people building it, then you.
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Interviewer
Need to listen to this conversation.
- [01:42]
Paolo Arduino
Let's dope. That's dope.
- [01:57]
Interviewer
Paolo. I want to start kind of where we always do, which is how incredible of a year you just had. Or usually we talk quarterly. So I say how incredible of a quarter you just had. But 2025, the numbers are once again absolutely astounding. Over $10 billion in profit. I mean we could go through it, but I think it's clear to say that Tether continues to be on the rise even after an incredible few years.
- [02:20]
Paolo Arduino
Yeah, I mean 2024 of course was amazing. 2025 was, was incredible. We, we were able to. It was an important year because genusact passed very relevant for Bo here as well. But is the year of the Legitimization of a technology that tether built in 2014. So when you see what you build recognized by the most powerful country in the world, that means something, right? Meant a lot to our entire organization, created a lot of excitement for the new opportunities. Because now it's not anymore about something that a couple of geeks are using. Well, it was never about that. Right. It was hundreds of millions of people around the world using USDT as their digital dollar. But now, even now that it became recognize what you can build upon, this technology is almost infinite. And so that was probably the biggest achievement as an organization to see that happening. And of course the announcement of USAT in September and Tether is building many different products in different areas. We have been involved in quantity trading, from quality trading to AI to sports ports to building wallets technology, tokenization technology. We are spreading ourselves in 10, 15, 20 different directions that are very relevant for the current moment in time that humanity is living in. And so that's the part that excites me the most, how the company is continuing to grow. So it's not a stablecoin company. Tether is the stable company. So a company that build technology to empower society to remain stable.
- [04:09]
Interviewer
So Bo, you seem to be in a very interesting spot. Obviously you were pivotal in crafting Genius and getting it passed in your previous role and now you're on the other side working with Tether obviously to have a compliant stablecoin in usat. What I'm interested in here is the legislation passed. Are there any critiques that you have of it? Because obviously I think in a perfect world wouldn't the original Tether be compliant and everybody would be happy and we'd have hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity there. Why are we in a position after the Genius act to craft or to create a new stablecoin?
- [04:47]
Bo Hinds
Well, I will say that I think that world will exist, right? I mean that's why reciprocity is in there. And so the process that's ongoing is treasuries fleshing out exactly what those reciprocity standards are going to end up looking like. And from there I'm very confident that USDT will receive reciprocity. I think for USAT obviously being the first issue Genius compliant product that exists in the marketplace, we have a unique first movers advantage to help onboard institutions into kind of this brave new world in the financial system. And so what we're doing for our customers is we're giving them an on ramp into the Tether ecosystem which is a tremendously powerful one as Paolo just described. I've been blown away just from being on the internal side of things how organized this, this company is and how much is actually being worked on. And so, you know, Tether is, is probably the most prolific technological company that exists today and it's a privilege to be a part of it. With usat, we're building and working on so many different partnerships, many of which are extremely exciting as we start to see the merger of TRADFI in this crypto ecosystem come together. And we hope to be the tip of the spear on that. I mean, you know, Tether is the most important player in the ecosystem and what we're doing is building an on ramp to the US capital markets, to that system. And I think it's going to be very well received. You know, we just launched less than a week ago. We're starting to build a little, build our liquidity floor. We're starting to bring our partners in and you'll start seeing in the secession, these very exciting partnerships be announced over the course of the coming weeks. And I think that your audience will be very impressed and very pleased by what they see.
- [06:12]
Interviewer
When you talk about partnerships is this effectively institutions that are going to need to have a stablecoin plan or utilize stablecoins who either would have the option to I guess A create their own stablecoin, which at this point I don't understand why any institution would do that, but we do know that there are those who intend to do that or B partner with some sort of incumbent that exists already and just move forward.
- [06:37]
Bo Hinds
Well, look, the power of incumbency is extremely strong and what you'll find is that really two things matter, it's distribution and liquidity. And so, you know, we're working to make USAT interoperable with USDT via a variety of mechanisms, whether that be through Anchorage or issuer or through pools on exchanges. You can create several different unique ways to do this, but with that folks have the optionality of whether or not to engage with a US Genius compliant product or with the most powerful token that exists in the crypto ecosystem itself in terms of transfer of value. So what we're doing with a lot of these institutions as they start to flesh out what this brave new world is going to look like for them is help them to understand the technology and how it benefits their customers. We're talking about increased efficiency, we're talking about transaction costs being lowered at a tremendous rate. These are all things that they care about and are considering. But look, there's no better company to work with than tether and with these products because we already have these things built. And so, you know, I think that banks are starting to realize it's probably not the best idea to issue their own stable considering that other banks don't want to settle with them in their own product. It does nothing to benefit the counterparty. And so we're providing an agnostic product that already has the distribution liquidity there so that people can actually use it and money can flow freely. So, and so, you know, as we thought back to this legislative process and David and I were deciding, look, where do we go with this? You know, we pushed hard on the fact that genius needed to go first. And it's a testament to what Paolo just described. You know, what they built is being recognized as really what's going to undergird our new financial system and the Rails that are going to be there. And so, you know, you think about institutional settlements and the way they view it from the interbank settlement perspective, these products are going to be enormous and the integration has know barely begun to scratch the surface. And so I think a lot of what we're doing in terms of pitching and building these partnerships is helping to educate. And that's really important because they want to be involved, they want to have product adoption occur in a streamlined manner. But they really need to understand the best way to do it. And there's no team that's better than doing that than tether. And so, you know, we've been doing this for the last several months at this point. But yes, we're certainly talking to large scale institutions, we're talking to merchants, we're thinking about how we build product utility and give the consumer the best optionality for product. Product use.
- [08:41]
Interviewer
It's such a 180 Paolo, because in our early conversations you couldn't get anyone to talk to us, right? I mean the industry as a whole, but certainly, you know, tether banks just weren't even thinking about this, right? They viewed it as competitive. There was no real chance that it was going to become compliant or become legal. And now here we are. I would imagine that the floodgates are open and everybody's calling because they have no idea what the hell they're doing.
- [09:06]
Paolo Arduino
Yeah, the, you know, the, I think the time preference of Tether is compared is different from anyone else.
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Bo Hinds
Right.
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Paolo Arduino
So we built a technology and we sit on it for 11 years before seeing the world recognizing it. And so, you know, as much as, you know, you also were very helpful to try to explain to the world the importance of stablecoins. You hosted me many times, no one gave the damn until the Genoa SAC passed. And so, but you know, we never stopped. We were relentless. And we continue to believe in the importance of what we were doing again. Today we have 536 million users across the world. So that is the biggest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity. And that is probably the thing I'm most proud of. And it still need education and definite banks has seen it as a threat, right? So the horse industry was seeing cars as a threat. But I think now the difference is that banks actually can adopt this technology and they can build new amazing products. They can have 24, seven trading, they can have instant settlements at the speed of light. So the new avenues for monetization and growth for banks are just insane. And so they have just to realize it, they need to hire talent that will understand how to embed these products within their ecosystem. But I think BOI is doing a fantastic job already engaging with different financial institutions, institutions that are actually very much interested in understanding what is possible and they want to leapfrog technology that has been built. So many banks still rely on technology that was built 40 years ago in Cobalt. And now they have the chance really to leapfrog 40 years and adopt by in a second, the most elegant technology layer for money ever built.
- [11:16]
Interviewer
Are there any risks associated with stablecoins if people do them the wrong way that people are not paying attention to? Right. Because we can talk about every bank in the world creating their own stablecoin. It seems like somebody's gonna blow it some way, shape or form if they do that. Right?
- [11:31]
Paolo Arduino
Well, we saw in 20, 23 different banks that have that, you know, that blew up, like Silicon Valley bank and others that blew up because they had the wrong duration maturity for us Treasuries. So having US Treasuries, not necessarily the holy grail is also the maturity. You need to have a short term maturity so that we want your treasury to be resilient to the changes. Also they could be from like interest rates, environment and all that. Right. So it's someone I think was Peter Thiel said you have to think about at least to a problem, at least 10,000 hours to become an expert in it. So I think it will be important for new institutions, the financial institutions to hire people that have long term experience in stablecoins to make sure that they don't redo the mistakes. I hope we are not going to see a Terra Luna built by a bank Right. So it's, you know, history is there for a reason, and we should hope that it will be respected and understood and studied before making the same mistakes.
- [12:39]
Interviewer
Both coming over to the other side and being on team tether instead of trying to craft the legislation. Obviously. What pain points do you see with the educational process that we were just sort of discussing with these institutions? I mean, how broad is the scale of their understanding? Are some people coming to you and saying, literally, what's a stablecoin and what do I do? Or are they more advanced at this point in saying, hey, listen, we have a plan, but we want to. We did.
- [13:04]
Bo Hinds
You know, I'll be honest with you. I think that probably, let's say three of the multinationals are, are pretty well astute and the process of integration and what this takes and also what stablecoins provide, both the bank and their customers. And so they've, they've started to develop infrastructure around this, but they're still looking for partners. I mean, if you start going down the totem pole in terms of just market scale and you're talking to regionals or super regionals or even communities, I think the knowledge gap begins to widen. But that's not to say that it's not worth pursuing those folks as partners, because, you know, a lot of Americans like bank optionality, a lot of them like community banks, and I still think they need access to the same products. But we're kind of watching like this, this fear model play out with clarity, right? I mean, you're watching this new legislative process on market structure. You're seeing banks, you know, grappling with the fact that stablecoin adoption is continuing to be widespread and certainly will be here domestically. And that scares them because they're worried about deposit flight. And at the end of the day, I think it's actually going to work in the inverse. I think that as banks start to have a better understanding of what product integrations look like and they choose the right partners, which I continually say is tether, they're going to have tremendous success, not only in keeping their deposits, but upgrading their systems and allowing their customers to have the best access to the best financial products that possibly exist in the marketplace. And it gives them a lot more freedom and power as a consumer and a customer of their banks. And so, you know, we can't speak to everyone at once, but we're, we're certainly pursuing a path in which we're not just focused on multinationals where we want to talk to regionals and communities as well. And Start talking about what this integration process could look like for them and what it could mean for their customers long term. But you know, everything takes a little bit of time. I mean, we're still on the precipice of this, this law just passing back in July. And so I feel very confident about where things are going long term. There is an appetite there. And you know, I think if they can get to the right place on Genius with, with the banks and the crypto ecosystem, it certainly provides a pathway for us to have a streamlined process of integration with, with everyone, not just the multinationals.
- [15:02]
Interviewer
I mean, you alluded to all these incredible new products that they can create utilizing stablecoins, obviously. But I would also imagine that there's plenty of plumbing that's being adopted behind the scenes that is not making the news. Right. I mean, I know that quite a few companies I've seen over time sort of allude to the fact that they're using stablecoins like Stripe and Robinhood, but they're just using them for internal payments on weekends, cross borders. Right. And so it seems like it's kind.
- [15:31]
Scott
Of a two pronged thing.
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Interviewer
There's the stablecoins that threaten bank deposits in their mind, but there's also, hey, we also probably just want to move money faster and cheaper for our own purposes. Right. So where's the push and pull, I guess, between those two things for all these institutions? Because I know some of them are just going to want to keep it to themselves. Right?
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Bo Hinds
Sure. I mean, from an interbank settlement perspective, you know, you can talk to some of the largest banks overseas, whether they're in Asia or other markets, and they're very excited about the prospect of stablecoin adoption, as Paolo hinted at. Like we're, we're undergirding this, this brave new world of finance in which we'll probably have 247 trading in 247 markets. And that's a great thing for global trade. It's a great thing for banks to be able to facilitate trade in this manner. They can settle over the weekends. If you're a bank in Asia, you can now participate in US capital markets post 2pm on a Friday because you don't have to worry about settlement. And so it unlocks a wide variety of different manners in which they can engage with the US and that's a good thing for our system as well. And so banks obviously see the benefit of using these products for their own internal metrics of settlement. But I think they'll slowly start to recognize their consumers are going to have a demand for these products as well. Everyone wants to be able to move money at will, whenever they want, at a very cost effective manner. And so, you know, it's adoption is inevitable. And I think that's kind of what we saw just with Genius as we pushed it forward is this was the product in demand. It's a testament to what Paolo and team built at Tether. And that's why it's so exciting to be here. Now I get to be a part of the other side of Genius. Right. I mean, this is what we envisioned, but now we're putting it into practice and it's really interesting to see how it's going to play out.
- [17:07]
Interviewer
You've got to be having more fun the last 18 months.
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Bo Hinds
I'll tell you, Scott, I don't envy being in the market structure debates. I think there's actually conversations happening at the White House today. And I feel for all the folks involved because I know how tumultuous of a process that can be. But look, I mean, it's the pressure cooker of a system and ultimately you get to the right place. I think that they will. I'm very confident they will. And I think it'll be good for the ecosystem writ large.
- [17:30]
Interviewer
Yeah. Paolo, I love when you say it's a stable company and not a stable coin, of course. And you guys have notoriously really started showing that, right? Obviously with massive AI investments developing, you know, decentralized AI platforms that I think align very well with what you said about financial inclusion. There's a lot of people who can't afford a couple hundred bucks a month or a week or a year to use AI, and you're opening that to them in the same kind of way that you've allowed inclusion to the dollar into the financial system. So with this large web of things that you're now investing in and developing, how does that all sort of, you know, feed the beast here with Tether itself, but with really being that stable company.
- [18:15]
Paolo Arduino
So, you know, the user base of us, the obvious user base obviously is 4 billion people. There are 4 billion people that are underserved, underbanked, they're left out by the traditional financial system. The very same people that cannot afford to have a bank account because they cannot pay $150 per year to keep a bank account open, are the same ones, as you said, that will not have the ability to purchase a subscription for a prominent AI platform. So the risk that I see here is that we talk about wealth gap and the huge disparity across emerging markets and the Western world that there is. When it comes to money, when it comes to finance, when it comes to wealth, we have to realize that stable intelligence is very important as well. Because if who has access to AI services will become 10 or 100 times more intelligent. Because we'll know everything. We'll have access to speed of light, information and problem solving. How society can remain stable if we have the other side of the world, so half of the population of the world, they will not become as intelligent. So that is a huge risk to the stability of the world and to stability of society. So what we learn with USDT is the power of disintermediation, the power of bringing tools directly in the hands of the people. The power peer to peer. And the same concept can be applied to energy. We build peer to peer energy, decentralized energy in Africa, with hundreds of kiosks in Africa that we are building with solar panels on top and rechargeable batteries inside, where we can sell a subscription for 3 USDT per month. A person in a village in Africa can recharge the battery four times. We have 800 kiosks now and 1 million users paying to get these batteries. And for them is a lifeline. Without a battery, there is no energy. Without energy, you cannot have access to anything digital. Having a smartphone in house or like a tablet will help with education the kids in these villages. But without energy, nothing can be done. So we build decentralized energies. So you cannot have centralized energy in Africa, because you cannot. These villages are very far apart one with the other. You cannot have long distance lines and a nuclear plant and so everything. Even with energy, we think the tighter way telecommunication we release key to, we built hole punch. That's a peer to peer telecommunication system. With AI. Again, how we fix the AI disparity is with AI I.e. local first, that runs on smartphones, that runs on any laptop. They can scale based on the hardware you have available. But we'll try to optimize using the best models, even the tiniest model, to help you with the basic things that AI should give you. If you are in a remote village in South America, or in Southeast Asia, or in Africa, that is our way to build technology that is resilient, that is distributed, that is helpful, that does not have any strings attached. Because we feel very lucky as an organization. We made plenty of money. We said it before. So we are not actually optimizing for yet another buck. We are optimizing for positive impact on society. And we believe that we being able to onboard 500 million plus people onto USDT when we are clearly on the right track of success. Also on a broader scale with other types of technologies, again, AI, energy and so on.
- [22:26]
Interviewer
Well, how much do you think that Americans will utilize USAT or USDT outside of the financial system? Or do you think that it's more of a focus on all the things you're doing to bring stablecoins into the United States financial system? Because we have a relatively stable financial system. Obviously most people I would venture in the United States have a bank account. It's certainly not the same as in Africa, but that doesn't mean that I want to spend two hours, which I did last week, trying to send a donation to my kids school with JP Morgan fraud alerting me two times over a small donation from my own bank account. Which happens. Right.
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Scott
Nobody wants to do this.
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Interviewer
Nobody wants. As stable as it is, as safe as our money is, the pain points are real.
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Scott
Do you see this as most Americans are going to use stablecoins through their bank or are they going to use.
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Interviewer
It in the way that Paolo is describing or is it going to be a blend?
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Bo Hinds
I think it's going to be both. You know, it's funny because everyone, when we start talking about rail efficiency in the US talks about how, you know, the Rails here are about 95% efficient. And that's true, but it's relative. Right. And so we still experience these pain points and they often come at very inopportune times for us. And so, you know, you can think about it's still very expensive to move money in the US Whether you're using Venmo or another money transfer service, especially from a card or via bank account. Just in terms of a settlement perspective, I think that Americans will pick up on the idea and concept of stablecoin integration from a retail level. But you do that by packaging the products in ways that allows them to engage with stables without having to think about the fact that this is coming from the crypto ecosystem. Right. And we're thinking about all different ways in which we can do this. You know, we've talked to payroll companies that front run payroll for some of the big box retailers. I mean, you can think about folks that make minimum wage in this country. It's really hard to be paid on a bimonthly basis. Right. And so with stables, you know, the company they're working with to receive their payroll in terms of like front running it, they can pay it almost on a daily basis. And that's a huge unlock for folks, especially for folks that are engaged in remittances. And you can start packaging these products together. If you want to automate a 10, you know, a 10% remittance out of your daily paycheck, the family that lives overseas, you can do that. And I think that these are the kind of products that we're seeing to be developed. And the technology is just beginning in a sense of where it's going here in the US and so we're talking to folks that do mortgage origination, giving people the optionality to actually put a down payment in stablecoins here in the US and pay it on a monthly basis in stablecoins. But I think it will be a blend. Ultimately it's kind of the merger of the retail space with traditional finance. Eventually, I envision a world in which you're going to have access to a stablecoin wallet through your banking ux. You can do a checking account swap and then send that money anywhere in the world instantly, at any time, at basically zero cost. And that's where we're going. But I also want to provide, you know, retail activity opportunity as well to consumers. And what I mean by that is, you know, being able to walk into a big box retailer and pay for a product in stables, it just makes life simpler. And it also saves you a lot of money in terms of settlement. I think that even the card companies are now looking at stable integrations. You can think about the visas or MasterCards of the world. It saves them a ton of money on the back end that they can pass on. They can consumer and savings and still increase the revenue long term. So, you know, it's just about creating efficiency. And in the US it might take a little bit more time just given the fact that folks do have access to different ways to move money. But that's not to say it's not going to convert. I mean, I strongly believe at the end of the day, stablecoin adoption will be extremely widespread here domestically. And I think that it'll kind of blend this, this world of crypto into the traditional financial world in a way that's, you know, really positive and leads to tremendous success for both retailers, merchants, banks and customers alike. It's going to be really exciting to see.
- [26:03]
Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, in my mind I've sort of always said that when you send a stablecoin, we'll know that we've won. When somebody just thinks they're sending dollars from one person to another in the same way that they do it, you know, in a manner as comfortable as a PayPal or a Venmo or a cash app. And they don't care if it was on like Avalanche or Solana or Ethereum or a private blockchain or even what stablecoin it was, right? If we do end up with a whole bunch of private ones, how close are we? I guess, Paolo, you know, you've been building that for a long time. I mean, how close are we to completely abstracting away any of the crypto as Beau sort of just mentioned?
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Paolo Arduino
So one of the main issues that I still see in the industry is user experience. Right. I think, you know, even without all the other things that we're doing, I would really not consider Tether a crypto company in the sense that it's a digital dollar and we are definitely using blockchain technology. But now blockchain is like one of the best tech layers out there. I think people need to have access to wallets, to infrastructure that is single purpose, focus to their needs. Most of the people in the world, they don't have time to understand crypto. They don't have time to understand the difference between a dog with a hat and a dog without a hat or a different hat. So, you know, they just want a dollar, they just want maybe bitcoin. That's it. So the way we build technology needs to be respectful of the actual needs and problems of the people. That's how Tata always approached it. And be, be helpful and care about their struggles and their frictions. And so that is something that I believe user experience needs to be certain way abstracted to be melted in something that can work for an banking interface, but also from more like consumer type of platform. We are demonstrating our efforts with Rumble and the Rumble Wallet. We want to not distract the users with too many products. There will be Bitcoin, TerraGold, USAT and USDT that will be used in the Rumble ecosystem for tipping and for the local economy that was already existing and just needed more efficient and faster and cheaper rail. So there will be there. We want to set the standard for what it means to take this technology seriously and adapt it to the real world.
- [28:50]
Interviewer
Talk about the adoption of Tether gold and the fact that you guys are like hoarding gold like Scrooge McDuck and DuckTales. Right. I literally imagine Paolo just swimming through dry tools.
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Paolo Arduino
Weaver in Try to jump in a pool full of gold, you're going to destroy every single one of your bones.
- [29:09]
Interviewer
I've seen it in a cartoon, it works. But I mean you seem to once again have focused on the right thing at the exact perfect time. Not that you obviously didn't have tether Gold long before, but you were ahead of the trend on gold, going absolutely parabolic again. And clearly there's been adoption of that product. I mean, who's using that versus tether itself?
- [29:31]
Paolo Arduino
So look, when 2014 we created USDT, for the first three years, no one gave it a damn. And then it all happened and it was at the right moment, in the right place. USDT Tether Gold was born in 2020. For the first two, three years, it was like everyone was telling me, oh, why? You know, we have much better products, we have all this crypto stuff. So why people should care about gold, Gold is not moving. And then guess what? Gold start to move. Why? Because as we said, and so, so the reason of the fact that we have 500 million users and we grew so much is because we understand. We try to understand how society moves and how society changes.
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Interviewer
We.
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Paolo Arduino
Try to craft products that are based on the information that we gather to all our partners and users across the world in 100 plus different countries. So we understood that the world was going towards darkness. And as much as we love bitcoin, Bitcoin is still too small to make the difference. It's less than $2 trillion. If a black swan event happens in the next few years, the world will go back to gold, not yet to bitcoin. I believe it's a problem of generational change. In 20 years, with a new generation, with new kids that are becoming super digital, the world will use bitcoin as the ultimate form of currency. I believe Bitcoin is superior to gold by far. But we cannot put our head under the sand. We need to look at the type, the moment in which we live and what is the most likely outcome and what are the mitigations that are sensible and available to us today. Gold was the best choice. We decided to tokenize gold. Today the market cap of tether gold is about $3 billion, is growing very rapidly, has been growing basically 300% in the last 12 months. We broke, we have now millions of users, you know, from Southeast Asia, central, South America. The interest is growing very much. And almost interesting enough, we people, for us, gold is not trade, right? So we didn't invest in gold to speculate on gold. We invested in gold as a hedge against the craziness that was happening, the debasement that was happening. Traditional financial system.
- [32:21]
Scott
You're talking just clearly for people who don't understand, right?
- [32:23]
Interviewer
You have, like you said, about 3 billion in tether gold. But tether also on your balance sheet hold 10 times that we another 20.
- [32:32]
Paolo Arduino
Billion give or take.
- [32:33]
Interviewer
So casual. 20.
- [32:35]
Paolo Arduino
I didn't mean to round 140 tons of gold. You know it's, it's, I love the.
- [32:41]
Interviewer
Reporting they're hiding in nuclear.
- [32:46]
Paolo Arduino
The James Bond style. I mean it's not much but it's honest work. You know it's, it's, it's really is a way for protecting tether and its user base from the craziness that could happen in the world. And you know, every day we wake up and there is more instability in macro. There is concerns of wars, unhappiness, society, instability. So in hindsight what was the right decision? But of course it's easy to say it now. We took that decision five years ago when everyone thought we were stupid. And yet it worked. Funny enough, everyone is super excited and still talks about the big short as a trade. I think that you know, made 1 billion in profits that short. Our gold position is probably 10 times that. And so and I don't see a movie starring Bo and us who would.
- [33:45]
Interviewer
Play you guys.
- [33:47]
Paolo Arduino
But it's really seriously, it's the way we think to the world is, is, is trying to understand where everything's going and not they take the easy answer and trying to build something that could be truly resilient to the apocalypse.
- [34:05]
Interviewer
Well, I want to jump back to USAT and the Genius Act. What specifically makes USAT compliant in a way that I guess USDT isn't. And what's the advantage of using that when we know that USDT eventually will be.
- [34:18]
Bo Hinds
Well, I mean the compliance standards are fairly simple, right? One to one backed, having the transparency. I think for us it's really about the issuer, right? So two separate issuers of the products, but still a tether product and it acts the same. And so what we can do is create really seamless interoperability between the two. And a lot of folks that have really wanted to enter the tether ecosystem from the US have been looking for a vehicle to do that. And that's what USAT provides. But it unlocks this network of liquidity and distribution for folks here that they've been clamoring for access for, for years, but they just haven't had, they haven't been able to participate in. And so USAT is exciting in the sense that you know, issued from the beginning, it's the first units compliant product out there. It can be used as collateral in trading, can be used as reserves On a balance sheet, it's recognized as that the US Government says yes, this is one to one backed, you can trust it as being a digital dollar. And so, you know, I think institutions like we were talking about are just starting to figure out the use cases for these products. And it's honestly pretty amazing. I mean, I have meetings all day long with different folks that come to us with new and innovative ideas of how to use the products. And you know, I learn something new every day by folks that we're interacting with. And so I think that again, like we're just beginning to scratch the surface, the surface with what integration looks like long term and you know, having that unlock for people to start interacting with this, you know, entire tether network that's been developed that PALO has built so successfully really is exciting to institutions and consumers alike. And so, you know, we're making plays both in the tradfi side and the defi space, but we're going to do it the right way and build this product the right way. And so, you know, we're working on establishing liquidity for giving people access, building product utility. That's not something that's done overnight. And so, you know, we have a lot of, you know, preferred partnerships that we've created with different folks that have very unique use cases, some of which maybe a little bit less unique, some might consider mundane, but very, very practical. And you know, we're excited to roll those out in the coming weeks and you know, we'll have to do a follow up maybe in about a month or two as we start to unveil the announcements.
- [36:12]
Interviewer
Dammit, let's get them now.
- [36:13]
Bo Hinds
And we can, we can start talking through what this looks like long term. But I think that the writing will be on the wall and it'll be very clear that you know, these products are here to stay, especially under this new compliance standard. And you know, I'm excited for, for Tether to have the reciprocity as well and have product optionality in the meantime. But it's one system, it's one company and we're pushing forward to integrate these technologies that change people's lives for the.
- [36:36]
Scott
Good to some degree.
- [36:37]
Interviewer
It's just. You had to get a US licensed bank to issue it.
- [36:42]
Bo Hinds
That's correct. Look, Anchorage is great, they have great partners and we've successfully rolled out the product. Tech works fantastically and we're excited about that. But I think that long term the prospects for just matriculation throughout the marketplace are extremely positive and we're going to drive those Things forward.
- [37:02]
Interviewer
How much does the clarity act matter at this point? Listen, when you were, when you were in the office over there, it was like this thing is 100%. I'm not saying you were saying that. That's how I felt that the consensus.
- [37:11]
Scott
Was genius is done, clarity is coming. This is going to be so easy.
- [37:15]
Interviewer
And then it seems like they opened Pandora's box with the yield and another number of other issues. So I guess two questions. What are. You know, I think it's kind of dead in the water for us now, perspective. But maybe I'm wrong. If it does not pass, how much does that matter?
- [37:31]
Bo Hinds
I mean, for us it doesn't matter as much, but I think that having clear rules of the clear rules of the road for the entire ecosystem is very healthy for long term adoption. I think that, you know, at the end of the day, there are some very smart people working on this. I would not underestimate Patrick Witt, by the way. I think that he's a brilliant person with a phenomenal mind. And if anyone can get this done and push it through, it'll be him and David working alongside of each other. David Sacks, that is. But look, there's complications between the TRADFI folks that have this fear of what integration looks like long term and the crypto ecosystem at large on the exchange side. But that being said, I think that maybe the conversation is a little bit out of bounds right now just in terms of directly on yield. I think it's more about separation of UXs and what that looks like for some of the crypto native folks. There's no reason why you can't separate your UXs, get a banking license and then pursue the same capabilities, capabilities that you were doing through an exchange. But I think that there's a balance to be struck here. I think that there's some education that needs to happen. You know, I know this meeting is happening today, possibly still going on as we speak, but I'm just an observant outsider at this point. So I'll be anxiously waiting for any news that breaks from that, as I'm sure you will. But you know, I'm actually optimistic that a deal can be reached here. You know, I'm not saying it's 100%, but I think there's the right people working on it and it's common sense to come to a resolution that pushes this technology forward. I think banks recognize that there's going to have to be give on both sides, I'm sure. But for us, it's Kind of we're agnostic, genius has passed, we have our business model, it's not going to be affected by the market structure, Bill. So we'll be patiently waiting for the outside to see what happens.
- [39:06]
Interviewer
Paolo, I know you got to go in a couple minutes and I want to be conscious of that. So I have a question for both of you and one from the international perspective and the second same question from the US perspective. What's the vision in a perfect world in 10 years for you know, tether as a company? Palo, you know you and I have talked about how fast things will happen with AI and robotics and all of that. Of course. So like all the things that you're building, investing in, I mean I might want to ask one year, 10 years might be too long. But you know, the grand vision, I.
- [39:33]
Paolo Arduino
Think in 10 years we are going to see a coexistent of humans, robots and a trillion of AI agents. The coexistence can only possibly be possible if society is stable. Imagine society not being stable. And plus you put robots, machines and a gazillion of AI agents, it's going to be a mess. So technology is the bond to keep society united, stable, fair, transparent. And I believe in 10 years we're going to see our products doing exactly that, be supporting people in their day to day lives, remaining true to the original mission. We're going to see stablecoins to connect, to be the connecting tissue between a robot, a self driving car, a person, a smart fridge, an intelligent light bulb like and hundreds of AI agents. So they all. The beauty of stable coins is that we just scratch the surface onto their potential. Right now you will have stable coins that are able to, to carry in one single transaction both value and information. In the past value information were separate. You were exchanging cash to exchange value, you were writing the paper to share information. Now with stablecoins, it's programmable money, it can transfer everything, can create incredible constructs that can be used not only by humans but also by the machines. And that is something that is so necessary for the future and that is what will drive the next leg of growth for, for, for society into something that would of course be more AI driven and more, more, you know, almost like sci fi.
- [41:37]
Interviewer
Oh, is it the same vision in the United States? Or I guess more specifically, you know, considering our market, what, what do you think it'll look like?
- [41:46]
Bo Hinds
I mean I think it'll look very similar to what Paolo described. Again, I'll repeatedly say this, I think we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what the brave new world looks like, whether that's information sharing or transfer of value mechanisms. And so as this unfolds, the one thing I'll say just about traditional banking, I think that as a lot of these multinationals and the super regionals and community banks alike start pursuing these products, eventually you're just going to see basically stablecoin sandwiches, but built deposits will be tokenized. Everything will be moving through stables. And so, you know, I'll specifically put it there. And so you can think about what that looks like from, like a USAT perspective or, you know, any of the competitors, like. But, you know, for us, we have that distribution liquidity there. And so I think we're the winners at the end of the day, so long as we can pursue this in the right manner and find the right partners. But, you know, Paolo did an excellent job of describing what the future looks like, so I'll let it sit there, but we'll keep doing our side on the stablecoin front and pushing along integration here domestically.
- [42:41]
Interviewer
Are our robots going to just endlessly argue about politics on their own social media platforms?
- [42:48]
Bo Hinds
They might just talk about us.
- [42:52]
Interviewer
They've already launched one, apparently, and have talked about human destruction as one of the topics that they spun up on their own. So I'm not too optimistic. We got to make it to 10 years. Guys, thank you so much. It's a pleasure having both of you. I want to be conscious of your time and hopefully be able to follow up. Bo, as you said, in a couple months as the announcements you alluded to start to roll out. And Paolo, I know I'll talk to you at least once every three months, no matter what.
- [43:14]
Paolo Arduino
Absolutely always. Pleasure. Thanks, Scott. Thank you.