Long regarded as an impending black swan, Tether has successfully weathered out the contagion and bank runs caused by Luna’s collapse in the depths of the 2022-2023 bearmarket. Since then, a large portion of Tether’s reserves has been shifted to treasury bills, which are the closest dollar proxy, positioning Tether among the top 20 holders of T-bills, worldwide. However, navigating the Tether FUD was not the first rodeo for Paolo Ardoino, as he has also previously led Bitfinex, which successfully recovered after a $72M hack, back in 2016. The worldwide adoption of USDT, especially in emerging markets and developing economies, serves as a testament to Tether’s commitment to create a product with tangible real-life applications.

Topics discussed in this episode:
0:00 - Introduction
3:27 - Paolo’s background
10:12 - How Bitfinex succeeded
16:37 - DEX vs. CEX UX
22:11 - Entrepreneurship and company culture
25:04 - Founding Tether and its use cases
32:19 - Expanding Tether’s cross-chain support
38:38 - Tether’s reserves and long-term vision
45:49 - Stablecoin wars: BUSD & USDC
51:08 - Decentralized stablecoins and bank runs
59:45 - The potential of diversifying physical backing
1:04:18 - Holepunch & Keet - the P2P renaissance
1:17:41 - Incentivising P2P interactions

Links mentioned in this episode:
- Paolo Ardoino on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JBVYdi
- Tether on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4b5CdY1
- Bitfinex on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3w97AkW
- Holepunch on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JyaL8Y
- Keet on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3xSyGxg

Sponsors:
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at https://gnosis.io/ -
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at https://chorus.one/?utm_source=epicenter -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst.
Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/545
#tether #usdt #crypto