Paolo Ardoino posted a flat denial Aug. 15 after a CoinMarketCap note placed Tether alongside Stripe and Circle in what the analysis described as a collective push to build stablecoin-focused payment networks. CoinMarketCap estimated the companies in that category had raised more than $1 billion combined for projects designed to move digital dollars across dedicated rails.
"Tether is NOT building any blockchain nor has plan to build one. We remain agnostic and support many transport layers for our stablecoins," Ardoino wrote.
The confusion arose partly because Tether has backed two separate blockchain projects built around stablecoin transfers: Plasma and Stable. Stable targets institutional users and uses USDT for network fees. Plasma focuses on retail activity and raised roughly $373 million in a token sale. Ardoino's position is that those investments reflect support for outside infrastructure, not a move toward owning the rails.
Tether does not operate either network. The company keeps USDT distributed across blockchains it does not control. Tron and Ethereum currently carry the largest share of USDT supply, and Ardoino's preference for staying network-agnostic preserves that structure.
CoinMarketCap estimated that USDT users pay approximately $2.9 billion annually in transaction fees to those outside blockchains—revenue that a proprietary network would capture directly. Ardoino is choosing to leave that fee stream with outside validators rather than build a competing chain.
The strategy gives Tether a reach that a single proprietary chain would struggle to replicate. When U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control enforcement required action, Tether froze USDT on Tron. That ability to act across multiple networks without owning any of them is a function of staying multi-chain rather than consolidating control.
Tether's market capitalization sits near $183 billion, making USDT the largest stablecoin by a wide margin. Migration risk alone on a $183 billion asset makes a proprietary chain hard to justify.
The competitive backdrop is changing around Tether regardless. Circle is expanding USDC in several markets and developing Arc, its own payments infrastructure product. Stripe is building Tempo for stablecoin payments. Both moves represent competitors consolidating more of the payment stack than Tether currently controls.
Tether has also faced pressure in Europe under the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA—the European Union's digital asset licensing framework that took effect for stablecoin issuers in mid-2024. Revolut delisted USDT in response to MiCA compliance requirements. Tether received its first clean KPMG audit this month—an unqualified opinion, meaning KPMG had no reservations about the financial statements—a result the company had not previously obtained from a major accounting firm.
Ardoino's denial draws a clear line between passive investment in outside projects and active development of proprietary infrastructure. Backing Plasma's $373 million token sale is a financial position. Building a chain and migrating USDT supply onto it is an operational commitment of a different scale entirely, and Ardoino said Tether has no intention of making that move.
