Tether Targets 500 Billion and Pushes Its Investors

Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, is playing a risky card. The company is trying to close a historic $500 billion fundraising, but time is running out. Investors have two weeks to commit. After this time, the project could be shelved purely and simply.

The XXL award that makes Wall Street hesitate

According to The Information, Tether, the company behind USDT, has given potential investors a two-week deadline to confirm participation in its private funding round. If the commitments do not reach the target amounts, the company can simply postpone the operation.

The stated ambition is immense. Tether would seek a $500 billion valuation in a fundraising of between $15 billion and $20 billion, achieved through a private placement, with Cantor Fitzgerald as an adviser.

At that level, the group would surpass Bank of America, worth around $352 billion, and rank just behind JPMorgan Chase, which has a capitalization of around $794 billion. Such an operation would push the USDT issuer into a very exclusive circle of the world’s biggest financial powers.

However, the enthusiasm on the ground is not complete. According to several sources cited by The Information, some investors consider this valuation too ambitious. Because while USDT will remain the largest stablecoin in the market with a market cap of about $184 billion, crossing the $500 billion mark requires a lot more than just dominating the sector.

This requires strong confidence in Tether’s ability to continue to grow, diversify its activities and maintain sufficient transparency about the quality of its reserves.

Transparency and ambition, Tether plays a new card

This is not the first time Tether has mentioned fundraising. In September 2024, Bloomberg already revealed that the company is exploring this route and is considering raising between 15 and 20 billion through a private placement representing about 3% of the capital.

CEO Paolo Ardoino then confirmed the intention for X and mentioned expansion into sectors as diverse as artificial intelligence, energy, commodities and media.

Last February, however, Arduino partially revised its communication. In an interview with Cointelegraph, he described the 20 billion figure as “mere hypotheses”, while maintaining a valuation of 500 billion, which he readily compares to OpenAI’s profits. Today, the pressure seems very real and the tone has clearly changed.

At the same time, Tether is trying to dispel its most criticized shadow areas. According to the Financial Times, KPMG has been commissioned to conduct the first full audit of its financial statements, a first in the company’s history.

PwC also supports her in setting up her internal systems. Until now, Tether has been satisfied with attestations signed by BDO Italy, far from a comprehensive audit covering assets, liabilities and internal controls.

This approach is not trivial in the context where stablecoins concentrate 75% of the total cryptocurrency trading volume and where USDT holds about 68% of the exchange volumes. Gaining the trust of large institutional investors necessarily requires greater transparency.

Tether is playing a risky card. Tight deadline, XXL valuation, uncertain market. If the operation fails, it will be a strong signal of distrust towards the stablecoin giant. If it succeeds, Tether will move into another dimension, that of systemic financial institutions. The next two weeks will tell a lot about the future of the sector.

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The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be construed as investment advice. Before making any investment decision, do your own research.