Tether, Inc. appoints new CFO in drive to achieve full audit

Tether, Inc. has appointed Simon McWilliams as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, as a step in the way of producing a full audit. The former CFO, Giancarlo Devasini, will transition to the position of chairman.

Tether, Inc. welcomed Simon McWilliams into the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He will replace Giancarlo Devasini, who will take up the role of Chairman. The stablcoin is planning to extend its financial reporting and achieve a full audit status, to revoke any fears of being insolvent. 

McWilliams will bring two decades of experience as CFO with large investment companies. The new CFO will also work toward the goal of compliance with regulators.

“Simon’s expertise in financial audits makes him the perfect CFO to lead Tether into this new era of transparency,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “With his leadership, we are moving decisively toward a full audit, reinforcing our role in supporting U.S. financial strength and expanding institutional engagement.”

Ardoino thanked Devasini for his visionary role with Tether, turning it into a crypto industry leader since 2014. Based on self reports, the stablecoin has reached as many as 400M users over time. Tether continues to spread to niche chains, becoming one of the key tools for unified liquidity. 

Devasini’s role would be to make the USDT issuer more important to the US financial system, while also advancing global adoption. While Tether, Inc. is international, the company aims to join the “Made in USA” crypto trend to consolidate its positions. 

Tether works toward a full audit

Over the years, Tether has been accused of printing USDT out of thin air. It has always maintained that its USDT is covered by reserves, though not all of them are in fiat currency. 

The task of McWilliams would be to make USDT more transparent and move beyond the current quarterly report of assets and liabilities. The current document, an attestation of reserves by a top 5 accounting firm, is still considered insufficient to turn Tether into a fully regulated stablecoin provider.

CEO Paolo Ardoino called Tether a one-in-a-century company, promising the audit would arrive soon. 

Tether is once in a century company.
And we're laser focused on transparency, doubling down our efforts for a full audit.
Simon's hire is massive, truly a force of nature in the financial world.
Giancarlo will transition to Chairman of the Group, with concentration on our macro… https://t.co/KdVlxDfLk2

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) March 3, 2025

Onboarding a new finance professional happens at a time when the usage of USDT is shifting. While Euro Area traders are pushed away from the asset, USDT remains widely used for global exchanges and for P2P transfers. 

At the same time, Tether is looking for ways to become compliant with Euro Area regulations by proving it has reserves with an acceptable banking institution. Due to its lack of compliance, USDT has been phased out of Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com, and most recently, Binance.

The new CFO will have to deal with bringing the leading stablecoin back to major exchanges. In a reverse move, Bybit replaced its USDC pairs with USDT, as most of its activity is from outside the Euro Area.

Tether wages war on crime stablecoin accusations

One of the main accusations against Tether is that it is used for crimes and hiding crypto funds. The company aims to dispel that accusation by proposing a token lockup mechanism. 

So far, Tether has banned 2,113 addresses, containing over $1.3B in value. The most recent cooperation was to intercept and freeze some of the funds and wallets linked to the Bybit hack. 

USDT continues to be used in P2P payments, especially in its TRON version. Over 61M users hold USDT on TRON and use it for micropayments. On Ethereum, just around 6M users hold UDST, though with a more significant prevalence of whales. 

USDT expanded its supply to 146.3B tokens, surpassing the USDC supply of 55.3M. In the past month, USDT added another $5.2B tokens, coinciding with a small market recovery. By the end of 2025, the supply of stablecoins is still expected to double.

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