Tether CEO says USDT drives 40% of gas fees, plans U.S.-compliant stablecoin

Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, attributed nearly 40% of all blockchain gas fees to transactions sending USDT. He pointed out that hundreds of millions of users on ETH, Arbitrum, BSC, Solana, Polygon, TON, Avalanche, and Tron used USDT daily. 

Ardoino asserted that the Tether digital dollar (USDt) protected families in emerging economies against local inflation and national currency devaluation. He added that blockchains focusing on “lower gas fees” paid in USDT would “take over the world.”

However, Ardoino explained that Tether was not looking to go public, even after expanding in the U.S. He said the company will remain focused on emerging markets where it had an advantage over its rivals. The Tether boss boasted that his company had done “incredibly well” in emerging markets for over a decade. He said Tether had better technology and understanding of this market segment “than anyone else.”

Ardoino disclosed that his company would provide an efficient stablecoin for interbank settlements, payments, and trading as part of its “U.S. domestic strategy.” Tether will also focus on U.S. institutional markets after the landmark Genius Act crypto legislation was passed. Ardoino claimed that Tether had about $162B worth of USDT in circulation, an increase of 18% since the beginning of 2025. 

Ardoino says achievement is a statement of USDT’s utility

40% of all blockchain fees are paid to send USDt 🤯
That's across 9 chains: ETH, Tron, TON, Solana, BSC, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Polygon & Optimism.

Hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets use Tether's digital dollar USDt daily, to protect their families from local… pic.twitter.com/glAFR38u5Z

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) August 5, 2025

Ardoino said Tether’s achievement of 40% gas fees market share was “a statement of USDT’s utility” for countless users in developing countries and emerging markets. He previously claimed that over 400 million people across the globe used USDT.

The use of USDT also increased quarterly by 35 million wallets. The U.S. Treasury Department’s statistics showed that Tether held over $127 billion in U.S. treasuries as of the second quarter of 2025. The holdings compared it to sovereign nations like Germany, South Korea, and the UAE.

Bernstein analysts expect USDT to continue dominating with a 65% share of the stablecoins market. They also claimed that stablecoins would soon evolve from the “money rail of crypto markets” to the “money rail of the internet.”

The analysts believe the stablecoin market cap will grow 16x to over $4 trillion in the next ten years, up from the current $249 billion. They said this “transformative growth” would be driven by the extensive use of crypto in payments through stablecoin-native financial services and tokenized capital markets. 

According to the GasFeesNow platform, sending USDt on Ethereum costs $0.5619, $0.0021 on BNB, $0.0002 in Polygon, and $3.94 to $8.01 on Tron. It also costs $0.0427 to send USDT on Ton, $0.001 to $0.1 on Solana, $0.0001 on Aptos, $0.0006 on Avalanche, and $0.0062 on Polkadot. However, the platform disclosed that estimating gas fees for the Tron network was a bit tricky.

Tether plans to launch a new stablecoin

Ardoino said in early April that Tether was considering developing a new stablecoin that would comply with pending U.S. stablecoin laws. He pointed out that his company had no problem with the USDT being banned in the U.S. due to regulatory restrictions. The Tether CEO claimed that a new stablecoin would help circumvent the ongoing regulatory issues.

However, Ardoino clarified that his company had “the highest level of compliance” regarding cooperation with regulators. He stated that the theories and rumors about Tether staying out of the U.S. market due to regulatory issues were just competitor desperation. The Tether boss said his company did not have any issues with the pending stablecoin legislation in the United States.

“We believe that our main stablecoin is perfected for emerging markets, but we can craft a payment stablecoin that works for the U.S….We need to have two products with two different value propositions.”

–Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether

The Tether CEO was optimistic that the USDT would remain listed on secondary markets in the U.S. He pointed out that global access to USDT was critical for remittances. However, Ardoino also mentioned picturing a “long-term future reality” where the USDT was not “a major player” in Europe or the U.S.

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