Tether Holdings Ltd., the issuer of the $115 billion stablecoin USDT, is set to significantly expand its workforce over the next year. The company aims to double its headcount to approximately 200 employees by mid-2025, with a particular focus on enhancing its compliance and finance departments, according to CEO Paolo Ardoino in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Ardoino emphasized that despite this expansion, Tether intends to maintain its lean structure. “We are very proud of the fact that we are very lean and we want to remain lean because we want to be flexible,” Ardoino stated. “We are very careful when we hire people; we hire only senior professionals.”
Even with a relatively small team, Tether has emerged as a major financial player, reporting a $1.3 billion profit in the second quarter, driven largely by its popular stablecoin. This is in stark contrast to major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, which employ thousands.
Ardoino highlighted the need for sophisticated tools to monitor potential illicit activities involving USDT on secondary markets, such as exchanges and over-the-counter desks. “Different types of tools that are much more automated” are required for this task, he explained. In contrast, the primary market involves direct transactions between investors and Tether.
Tether has faced scrutiny over the potential misuse of USDT, including reports of its use by Russian arms smugglers to evade US sanctions. The company has pledged to cooperate with global authorities to prevent illegal activities involving its stablecoin. In May, Tether announced a partnership with Chainalysis Inc. to enhance its transaction monitoring, including sanctions screening.
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In addition to expanding its workforce, Tether has been actively investing the yields from its significant Treasury holdings, committing around $2 billion to startups over the past two years. Investments include backing companies like Northern Data Group and Bitdeer Technologies Group. Despite this investment activity, Tether’s investment team remains small, with just 15 members overseeing these operations.
Ardoino also expressed caution about rapid workforce expansion, criticizing the practice of hiring aggressively during market booms only to lay off employees during downturns. “There is nothing that I hate more than all those companies, especially Silicon Valley companies, that hire hundreds of people during bull runs to fire them as soon as there is a downturn in the market,” he said. “That is one of the most unfair things you can do to employees.”
Cre: Bloomberg
David Ma was born in 1980 in California, is a Vietnamese American, known as one of the entrepreneurs and investors in the field of cryptocurrency and stock market. In 2006, he graduated from Stanford University with honors and began his career in business.
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