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Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan believes stablecoin issuer Tether could become the world’s most profitable company if emerging markets shift to using USDT as a primary currency. In a new Bitwise blog note, Hougan says that Tether already holds a near-total share of the stablecoin market in many non-Western countries. “But Tether is targeting a very large market. It has a nearly 100% share of the stablecoin market in non-Western countries. There’s a chance that many emerging market countries will convert from primarily using their own currencies to using USDT. If that happens, Tether could end up managing trillions of dollars and capturing all of the interest.” At current rates, Hougan projects that if Tether can reach $3 trillion in assets, its profits could surpass Saudi Aramco’s record $120 billion in 2024. “For context: In 2024, Saudi Aramco turned in the most profitable year in corporate history, earning $120 billion. At current...

Ripple thinks its newly acquired prime brokerage, Hidden Road, will boost confidence in its tiny stablecoin, RLUSD. The $1.2 billion cash, equity, and XRP token deal is quadruple the value of RLUSD’s market capitalization. Unlike the $1-pegged RLUSD, the value of XRP is supposed to rally in response to positive developments. Unfortunately, XRP has declined in value today since CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s morning announcement of the company’s most expensive acquisition ever . Price of XRP since Brad Garlinghouse’s 8:06am NYC time zone tweet. Read more: PayPal and Ripple stablecoins still sub-1% despite ‘stablecoin gold rush’ According to Garlinghouse, Hidden Road will use Ripple’s RLUSD as collateral while prime brokering, “including cross-asset (crypto and traditional instrument) trades.”  Why Hidden Road couldn’t simply use another stablecoin to serve the same purpose wasn’t clear from the press release. ‘Efficient cross-margining’ despite man...

The US Justice Department (DoJ) has indicted and arrested an heir to the Cartier jewelry empire with conspiring to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking using tether (USDT). In Miami, law enforcement arrested Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, a direct descendant of Louis Cartier, the founder of the luxury watch, necklace, and bracelet maker, where he was allegedly coordinating with a Colombian drug cartel. Alongside five Colombian nationals, Cartier tried to import 100 kilos of cocaine and launder hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly through over-the-counter (OTC) USDT trades. They actually succeeded at laundering 14.5 million USDT before their arrests. Cartier is currently in a Miami detention center while his co-conspirators are in Colombian jails. To carry out his scheme, Cartier controlled shell companies and misrepresented to financial institutions that they were in the business of software and technology. He then used the companies’ accounts, according to the indictment, as...

Stablecoin operator Tether again minted a trove of USDT tokens on Tron’s network, but there’s a catch: the coins aren’t yet available for swaps or transactions.  According to LookOnChain, Tether has minted $13 billion in new USDT tokens on Ethereum and Tron blockchains since October last year. The latest addition to Justin Sun’s Tron decentralized network is $1 billion in USDT. While the tokens have been minted , on-chain data showed that the USDT added to Tron on Jan. 29 has not been issued yet. This means that the massive mint was intended for future purposes, as confirmed by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. PSA: 1B USDt inventory replenish on Tron Network. Note this is an authorized but not issued transaction, meaning that this amount will be used as inventory for next period issuance requests and chain swaps. — Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) January 29, 2024 You might also like: Aggregate stablecoin supply sees largest increase since October Ardoino’s clarification,...