The CEO of Tether Holdings, Paolo Ardoino, is highlighting that the USDT stablecoin is largely backed by an asset widely regarded as safe and highly liquid.
In a new CNBC interview, Ardoino says if Tether were a country, the USDT issuer would rank among the top 20 largest foreign holders of US Treasuries.
-->“We have $152 billion now in issued tokens. And we have $172 billion in total reserves. We have more than $125 billion in US Treasuries, and the rest is very, very high liquid assets.
We own more Treasuries than Germany. Well, Tether is not a nation, but if we were a nation, we would be the 18th-largest nation holding US Treasuries.
We have more Treasuries than Germany, UAE [United Arab Emirates], Spain, Australia and we are growing. Our approach is to keep growing our US Treasuries base.”
As of March, Germany and the UAE held $111.4 billion and $104.4 billion in US Treasuries, respectively, according to US Treasury data. The countries that hold more US Treasuries than Tether as of March are Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Cayman Islands, Canada, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Ireland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Brazil, Norway, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
Last week, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said stablecoins could serve as a major source of demand for the government debt.
“I’ve seen estimates that just over the short term, stablecoins could create $2 trillion of demand for US Treasuries and Treasury bills. Put that in context, the number is probably about $300 billion right now…”
