Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, has established a unique position in the global market through a "denationalization" strategy that is not bound by the regulations of any particular country. Tether's USDT is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, yet operates relatively freely from US government regulation and pressure. In fact, Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, responded to the US government's move towards strict stablecoin regulation by stating that the company is considering "launching a separate stablecoin dedicated exclusively to the US market." This means Tether plans to maintain its current USDT operations internationally, while developing a new compliance-focused stablecoin specifically for the US—a strategic choice. This approach clarifies that Tether is particularly targeting emerging markets outside the US. CEO Paolo has directly stated that "the main users of USDT are concentrated in emerging markets," citing Turkey, Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, and African nations in particular. These countries, facing unstable local currencies or limited dollar supply, use USDT as an effective alternative to the dollar. Paolo also emphasized that Tether aims for USDT to play a "last-mile dollar role" for the financially underserved. As global demand surges, USDT has become a standard trading currency on international exchanges such as Binance and Bybit, and in some countries like Bolivia, prices at retail stores are even listed in USDT, making it commonplace in daily life. Ultimately, Tether has successfully established itself by distributing a dollar alternative with less exposure to US regulation worldwide. 1. Tether's Record Growth—So What's the Next Growth Engine? 1.1 Tether's record-setting growth The rapid, global increase in USDT demand has directly resulted in Tether’s strong profitability. According to Tether’s Q2 2025 financial report, $13 billion worth of new USDT was issued in the quarter alone, with quarterly net profit reaching about $4.9 billion. This massive profit was primarily driven by Tether’s investments in US treasuries and other assets such as Bitcoin and gold. Through this model, Tether deploys funds acquired via stablecoin issuance into safe assets like US treasuries, generating unprecedented operating profits. Compared to sovereign nations, Tether now holds the 18th largest amount of US treasury bonds—more than South Korea. As a result, Tether is now among the world's most profitable financial companies. Its market dominance is similarly overwhelming. As of 2025, the total USDT circulation has reached a record $155 billion, far outpacing Circle’s USDC (about $60 billion) in second place. USDT has become the foundational stablecoin used across both centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) exchanges, maintaining a market share of over 60%—making it unchallenged in its category. 1.2 Tether's next growth engine Alongside USDT, Tether is broadening its horizons through various "issuance"-focused businesses, such as the tokenization of gold via Tether Gold and asset issuance platforms like Hadron. However, for greater future growth, Tether needs to strategically expand the "utility" of its products, not just their issuance. To this end, Tether is pursuing a multi-chain expansion strategy utilizing USDT0 and building its own ecosystem on dedicated blockchains such as Stable and Plasma. First, expanding USDT0—based on LayerZero's OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) standard—across multiple chains puts Tether in direct competition with USDC. USDC has already gained a lead on multiple chains including Solana and Hyperliquid, seeing significantly higher usage than USDT in DeFi applications. In fact, USDC has recorded $3.7T in CEX trading volume and $9.0T in DEX volume, while USDT dominates CEXs with $7.2T but lags behind in DEXs at just $1.6T. This suggests USDT is mainly used for international remittance and large-scale transfers between CEXs, while USDC is preferred as collateral and for swaps in Ethereum-based DeFi protocols. Therefore, it's worth paying attention to how Tether’s expansion strategy with USDT0 might shift market dynamics. Additionally, in terms of building its own ecosystem, Tether’s initiatives around Stable and Plasma are particularly noteworthy. The strategy forms a competitive stance against established Layer 2 and major chains like Base, Arbitrum, and Solana, but the most direct competition is with Tron, which is currently the main chain for USDT transfers. Tron earns 99% of its fee revenue and 98% of its transaction volume from USDT transfers, while centralized exchanges reduce costs by buying and staking TRX—a key part of Tron's economics. However, given the ongoing concerns about Tron’s chain risk under controversial figure Justin Sun, there is ample opportunity for exchanges and institutions to consider migrating to more attractive platforms. This is where Stable may have a strong advantage. Given Stable’s corporate partnerships and robust enterprise infrastructure, there’s significant potential for expanding the scope of USDT’s utility. Can Stable become the key catalyst for Tether’s next phase of growth? Two stages appear likely to make this possible. 2. Stable's Two-Stage Strategy 2.1 Stage 1: Onboarding Enterprises 2.1.1 Enterprise-grade infrastructure From the outset, Stable has been engineered with institutional requirements as its top priority. To address the major barrier of gas fees in blockchain adoption, Stable allows users to pay gas fees directly in USDT, eliminating the need to buy or manage separate gas tokens for blockchain transfers. Moreover, the network bottlenecks that inevitably occur with frequent, large enterprise transactions have been solved in two ways: (i) by providing enterprises with dedicated block space to prioritize important transactions without delay, and (ii) incorporating transaction aggregator technology to maximize efficiency. This allows multiple transactions to be bundled and processed as one, greatly improving both speed and throughput. Finally, confidential transfer functionality is being prepared to secure sensitive corporate data. Altogether, the combination of these features makes Stable’s infrastructure institution-friendly, enabling easy, secure blockchain adoption for enterprise use cases. 2.1.2 Connections with enterprises To fund this infrastructure development, Stable recently secured $28 million in seed investment. Participating investors include Bitfinex—where Tether CEO Paolo is CTO—and USDT0 as the lead, global trading giant Susquehanna International Group, global asset manager Franklin Templeton with $1.53T AUM, and leading exchanges like Bybit and BTSE. Angel investors and advisors include Tether CEO Paolo, Binance board chairman Gabriel Abed, and Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley—forming a network spanning both traditional finance and crypto. Stable’s next challenge is how effectively it can onboard real enterprises and institutions. Fortunately, its investor network already provides access to major asset managers and exchanges, putting Stable in a strong position to secure its initial user base. For example, Bitfinex—closely associated with Tether—and Bybit, as investors, are likely to actively support Stable. CEXs currently process large volumes of USDT via Tron, but have strong incentives to consider moving to Stable for a more efficient environment. As Tron’s onboarding of major exchanges helped drive its own success, Stable could also partner with key exchanges to maximize network effects by incentivizing user adoption. Meanwhile, Tether is reinforcing its foundation through investments in real-world assets and industrial infrastructure. In early 2025, Tether announced its acquisition of a 70% stake in Adecoagro—a major agribusiness and energy company in Latin America—enabling USDT to be used in settlement of commodities such as grain, crude oil, and ethanol in South America. Tether has also made a strategic investment in African fintech firm Shiga Digital to expand USDT’s use in FX transactions and corporate finance, and acquired a 31.9% stake in Canadian listed mining company Elementi, expanding its influence in the commodities sector as well. These businesses may strategically leverage Stable. Such large-scale institutional transactions offer much greater stability and profitability than retail, making them highly attractive for Stable. Stable is focused on delivering institutional-grade, high-volume transactions as a stable and profitable business, aiming to ensure that the flow of USDT dollars is not just limited to public blockchains but also takes place within the “Tether ecosystem.” This is a powerful strategy for Tether to secure “chain sovereignty” in the blockchain environment. 2.2 Stage 2: Capturing the Onboarded Enterprises’ Users While Stable offers infrastructure for enterprises, it does not aim to be a blockchain solely for corporations. Instead, Stable provides a very user-friendly environment for individuals as well. For example, USDT transfers are fee-free, and USDT can be used directly to pay for gas, so users don’t need to purchase separate gas tokens. There’s also an intuitive in-house wallet to facilitate easy blockchain use even for users with little prior experience. Partnering with exchanges to onboard existing exchange users into the Stable ecosystem is a highly effective strategy. A notable example of this working is Coinbase’s Base chain. Coinbase provided strong user incentives for its customers to easily access the Base chain—for instance, by waiving fees for USDC transfers to Base, and enabling protocols like Morpho to be accessed from the Coinbase app, making it easy for users to use Base’s ecosystem without complicated steps or unfamiliar interfaces. Promotions offering rewards for depositing or using a certain amount of USDC attracted a rapid initial user base. This was key to Base’s fast early growth. Beyond exchanges, strategic partnerships with banks and fintech companies are also important onboarding strategies. For example, PayPal’s PYUSD currently operates on six blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana. If PayPal were to partner with Stable and allow PYUSD to be used for gas fees, this would give PayPal powerful incentives to build a more efficient payments infrastructure around Stable, naturally integrating its default wallet and payments infrastructure onto the Stable blockchain. Such strategic collaborations could enable Stable to reach not just enterprises but also mainstream use in daily payment settings. 3. Can Stable Drive Tether's Next Phase of Growth? Considering Tether’s track record and current strategies, Stable could well become the key driver for Tether’s next-generation growth. Tether has already achieved a first wave of explosive growth via USDT issuance and is now seeking a second phase by reducing reliance on Tron and building its own infrastructure. While chain-centric stablecoin platforms don’t offer radically new differentiation, Stable’s clear focus on institutional infrastructure and securing stable enterprise demand is a sharp approach. This represents a move to expand profits from “utility” centered on corporations and their users. Of course, challenges remain. There are virtually no successful cases of stablecoin-centric, enterprise-specific chains, and Tether also needs to remain alert to ongoing regulatory risks. Should strong regulation emerge in advanced economies like the US, Tether’s position could be threatened. However, Tether is likely to sustain its denationalization philosophy by pursuing exit strategies or launching separate compliance stablecoins as needed. While competition from other stablecoins like Circle’s USDC exists, Tether’s overwhelming liquidity, brand trust, and newly developing ecosystem are major barriers to entry for rivals. If Stable is successfully implemented, Tether could secure the entire stablecoin value chain—from issuance to distribution, trading, and payments. This would give Tether a new growth platform, further entrench USDT’s leadership, and drive growth for the entire stablecoin sector. In summary, there is a very high possibility that Stable will drive Tether's next phase of growth, and it will be important to watch how Tether turns this potential into tangible results. Four Pillars is a global blockchain specialist research company that brings together industry professionals with years of practical experience to serve clients worldwide. Since its founding in 2023, Four Pillars has conducted research into stablecoins, decentralized finance, infrastructure, tokenomics and more for over 100 protocols and companies. The company’s mission is to bridge information gaps across the sector and support the real-world adoption and growth of blockchain technology. Disclaimer This article is based on the independent research of the author, sponsored by Stable. The article is intended for general information only and does not constitute legal, business, investment, or tax advice. Do not make investment decisions or apply this article as accounting, legal, or tax guidance. References to specific assets or securities are for informational purposes only and are not investment recommendations. The opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and may not represent the views of any affiliated institutions, organizations, or individuals. Opinions presented may change without notice. 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