It was early April, during the middle of a conversation with Decrypt at Cantor Fitzgerald’s swanky midtown Manhattan headquarters, that Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino abruptly asked to pause the interview. The reason? He’d noticed a “weird message” on the laptop open in front of him.
After twenty seconds of silence in the conference room, Ardoino’s face flashed a big grin. Reports were circulating that Circle, one of Tether’s chief competitors, might tap the brakes on its long-planned IPO.
”People were not impressed by their financials and disclosures,” Ardoino said in reaction at the time. “They make no money, I guess.”
“It’s funny because I kept saying they were making no money, forever,” the Tether CEO continued. “And people were saying, ‘Oh, Paulo, of course you are, you’re a competitor.’ But it’s clear.’”
Two months later, Circle’s IPO has finally hit Wall Street—and the company is having anything but money troubles. On Thursday, the stablecoin issuer’s stock more than tripled its $31 IPO target price on its first day of trading, eclipsing $100 and sending the company’s fully diluted market capitalization surging past $19 billion.
Excitement around Circle’s Wall Street debut was so pronounced on Thursday that the New York Stock Exchange had to halt trading of the stock, CRCL, multiple times.
Decrypt reached out to a Tether representative Thursday to get Ardoino’s thoughts on the development, but did not immediately receive a response.
Tether is by far the world’s largest issuer of stablecoins—digital assets typically pegged to the U.S. dollar that allow holders to enter and exit positions in crypto markets and are thus a cornerstone of the industry.
The El Salvador-based company’s flagship stablecoin, USDT, currently boasts a market capitalization in excess of $153 billion. Tether’s next closest competitor is Circle, which issues USDC, a dollar-backed stablecoin with a circulating value of $61 billion.
Circle, which is based in the United States, is widely seen as a Tether competitor willing to comply with stringent financial regulations where the market leader may not. Tether has never submitted to a full financial audit, and USDT has been delisted in jurisdictions like the European Union with stricter requirements for stablecoin issuers.
As the United States attempts to pass its own legal framework for issuing stablecoins, Tether has signaled it may create a new token tailored to satisfy those requirements, and keep its flagship USDT token focused on emerging markets. Stablecoin bills pending in Congress would obligate issuers, among other things, to offer detailed, audited proof of on-hand reserves, and to comply with stringent anti-money laundering measures required by the Bank Secrecy Act.
During Decrypt’s sit down with Ardoino in April, the Tether CEO made clear there is little love lost between him and competitors including Circle. Ardoino dismissed any claims made by such companies about Tether’s alleged lack of compliance with financial regulations as untrue and disingenuous.
“They want to try to kill us,” he said. “Just for the sake of trying to make a little bit of more money.”
Ardoino also signaled, during the interview, that the choice made by companies like Circle to embrace Wall Street may be shortsighted.
“It’s great for us,” the CEO said of the increasingly crowded field of stablecoin issuers. “Because every one of them will focus on institutional adoption, and institutions will betray you for one business point.”
Ardoino analogized the desire of any competitor in his sector to try to catch up to Tether as akin to a startup trying to build “another Amazon” from scratch.
“Sure,” he said. “But we have the distribution that no one else has. It’s very hard to replicate now.”
Circle’s own CEO, Jeremy Allaire, saw his personal wealth balloon by nearly $2 billion on Thursday, based on company stock he owns.
Earlier this morning, the executive made a celebratory post on X, heralding Circle’s stock exchange debut as a historic moment for him and his company.
“From inception, we have been deeply focused on being trusted, transparent, compliant, ethical and well governed,” Allaire said. “Holding ourselves to the high standards of the NYSE and SEC rules and regulations further deepens those attributes.”
In the last few hours, analysts have rushed to explain Circle’s tremendous overperformance on the stock market, which caught many in traditional finance by surprise.
“It’s mostly driven by stablecoin fervor and folks vastly underexposed or sidelined there,” Tom Dunleavy, a partner at investment firm Varys Capital, told Decrypt of current interest in the company. “You can’t invest in Tether.”
Additional reporting by André Beganski
