Tether on the Path to Global Leadership: Which Cryptocurrencies Could Boost Growth
Date: 2025-10-01 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: BUSINESS
The issuer of the USDT stablecoin could reach a scale comparable to the world's largest corporations. According to Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, Tether has the potential to surpass Saudi Aramco in profits due to its dominance in developing countries and the management of trillions of dollars in money market assets. Recent discussions of a $500 billion valuation put the company on par with OpenAI and SpaceX.
USDT's current market capitalization is approximately $172 billion, significantly exceeding its competitors. Profits are generated by investing reserves in money market instruments, primarily US government bonds. In the second quarter of 2025, Tether earned $4.9 billion in net profit, and CEO Paolo Ardoino previously noted that the business's margins reach 99%.
According to the company, USDT is used by more than 400 million people worldwide, with the number of active wallets growing by approximately 35 million each quarter. Tether's primary audience is residents of developing countries, where the dollar-denominated stablecoin is becoming a substitute for local currencies. By the end of the second quarter, the company held $127 billion in US Treasury bonds, placing it among the top 20 largest holders, alongside Germany and the UAE.
The operating model is simple: the company purchases bonds and other securities, receiving interest income that simultaneously funds the issuance of USDT and generates profit. If its current dominance continues, the transition to widespread use of USDT in national economies could push the company's assets to $3 trillion. In this case, annual profits would exceed $120 billion—more than Saudi Aramco earned in 2024.
In 2024, Tether generated approximately $13 billion in profit and accumulated over 100,000 bitcoins. At the same time, the company is actively investing in related sectors: artificial intelligence, telecommunications, data centers, and energy infrastructure. Another step was the announcement of the launch of USAT, a US-regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin aimed at American users.
Hougan notes that Tether's story illustrates a broader trend: cryptocurrencies are penetrating colossal markets. For example, Bitcoin's market capitalization of $2.3 trillion is still less than 10% of the gold market ($25 trillion), but is already comparable to Amazon. Ethereum and Solana compete not only with fiat currencies but also with the global payments industry, whose annual turnover McKinsey estimates at $1.8 quadrillion.
According to the expert, decentralized blockchains, unlike traditional companies, are capable of capturing a significant share of these markets. This is why Ethereum's market capitalization has reached $500 billion, while Solana's is $100 billion.
Hougan highlights two key arguments: first, cryptocurrencies are targeting the world's largest markets, and second, even modest penetration promises enormous growth. However, the risks are also significant—billion-dollar failures could become the norm for the industry. The expert emphasized that no project, including Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, Aave, Hyperliquid, or Chainlink, is immune to failure.
The main question for investors, according to Hougan, is not which token will survive, but whether cryptocurrencies as a whole will become more significant in five years.
