Tether goes all out: Under the trend of Compliance, is the "king of stablecoins" feeling anxious about its barbaric growth?

Written by: Azuma, Odaily

The absolute leader in the stablecoin sector, Tether, has been very active recently, not only making moves in the vertical fields of cryptocurrency such as mining, exchanges, and Layer1/Layer2, but also actively laying out in industries like AI, brain-machine interfaces, agriculture, and sports.

Although in the past few years, Tether's business scope was not limited to the stablecoin sector, its recent layout pace has obviously accelerated. The reason for this is that with the gradual advancement of the GENIUS Act, stablecoins are gradually integrating into the mainstream financial market in a compliant manner. However, since Tether and USDT find it difficult to meet the various requirements of the GENIUS Act regarding issuer registration, types of reserve assets, auditing standards, and more, its market position is bound to be impacted in the subsequent compliance process. Against this backdrop, Tether seems to feel somewhat anxious, and its recent multi-directional accelerated layout may be an attempt by Tether to break the situation.

Under compliance trends, Tether faces challenges.

Earlier this month, the highly anticipated stablecoin regulation bill (the "GENIUS Act") was officially passed by the final vote of the senators and submitted to the House of Representatives for review.

The "GENIUS Act" was first introduced in February this year by U.S. Senators Bill Hagerty, Tim Scott, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cynthia Lummis, aiming to establish a legal framework for the legal use of stablecoin payments within the United States.

The core provisions of the bill are as follows:

Definition of stablecoin: A digital asset that is pegged to a fixed currency value and must be fully backed 1:1 by US dollars or other highly liquid assets, specifically used for payment and settlement scenarios.

Dual licensing regulation: Federal regulation, issuers with a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion must comply with federal oversight; state-level regulation, small issuers can opt for state registration (must meet federal equivalency standards).

100% reserve requirement: reserve assets are limited to cash, short-term US Treasury bonds, or central bank deposits, and must be isolated from operating funds. A proof of sufficient reserves must be submitted monthly to ensure users can redeem at face value.

Transparency mandatory disclosure: Regularly disclose the composition of reserves and redemption policies, audited for compliance by a registered accounting firm.

Anti-money laundering compliance: bringing issuers under the jurisdiction of the Bank Secrecy Act and fulfilling AML obligations at the level of financial institutions.

User protection is prioritized: In the event of a publisher's bankruptcy, the claims of stablecoin holders take precedence over those of other creditors.

Clear regulatory authority: It is clearly stated that payment stablecoins do not fall under the categories of securities, commodities, or investment companies, delineating the regulatory boundaries.

In short, as the first federal-level stablecoin bill, the market generally believes that the "GENIUS Act" will help stablecoins move out of the phase of reckless growth and officially integrate into the compliant market. However, at the same time, the "GENIUS Act" also imposes strict compliance requirements on existing stablecoin issuers, among which USDT, registered overseas with relatively complex reserve assets (some of which are Bitcoin and gold) and long-term refusal to disclose complete audits, is likely to face the most severe impact.

In a previous interview with Forbes, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the company plans to issue a new compliant stablecoin in the U.S. market, which will be "tailored for the highly banked and digitalized American economy." However, this may just be Tether's compromise in response to the compliance trends for stablecoins in the U.S. After all, USDT is Tether's core product, and it is foreseeable that USDT will face greater competitive pressure in the near future, which is clearly not good news for Tether. The WSJ also previously reported that the compliance requirements of the "GENIUS Act" could lead Tether to become the "biggest loser."

Similar situations are not only happening in the United States. In February this year, the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) published a list of compliant stablecoin issuers, including a total of 10 institutions, with Tether's largest competitor Circle (USDC issuer) among them, but Tether was not included in the list.

Under heavy pressure, Tether accelerates its布局.

As the storm approaches, Tether will naturally not "sit idly by." Recently, Paolo Ardoino emphasized that Tether will continue to focus its business on markets outside the United States, providing services to the 3 billion users who have not yet fully accessed the traditional financial system, thereby avoiding direct competition between USDT and other stablecoins that lean towards mainstream finance.

At the same time, Tether is also accelerating its layout in and out of the cryptocurrency industry in an effort to find new growth points.

According to Odaily's statistics, Tether has frequently made moves in the cryptocurrency verticals such as mining, wallets, Layer 1/Layer 2, and exchanges, either through direct entry or indirect investments, within the year 2025.

In terms of mining:

In March, Tether announced an increase in its stake in Bitdeer, holding a 21.4% share.

In June, Tether announced plans to open source its Bitcoin mining operating system MOS in the fourth quarter of this year to lower the entry barrier for new miners.

It was still June when Tether announced that the company had a total of over 100,000 BTC and was striving to become the world's largest Bitcoin mining company by the end of the year.

On the wallet side:

In January, Tether invested in the video-sharing platform Rumble, which announced the launch of Rumble Wallet, intending to help manage payments through AI agents/helpers.

In February, Tether announced a strategic investment in the self-custody crypto wallet Zengo to promote Zengo's support for Tether's stablecoin within the major blockchain ecosystems it covers.

In February, Paolo Ardoino also publicly criticized MetaMask for its lag, possibly intending to promote the wallet products supported by his company.

Layer 1/Layer 2 aspects:

In early June, the Layer 1 project Stable, supported by investment from Tether, officially announced its launch. Stable will use USDT as its native gas token, and Paolo Ardoino will serve as an advisor for the project.

In mid-June, another popular Bitcoin Layer 2 project supported by Tether investments, Plasma, successfully completed its public fundraising phase, with the $1 billion deposit quota quickly sold out.

Exchanges:

In June, Tether announced a strategic investment in the digital asset exchange Orionx, with the specific investment amount yet to be disclosed.

Even more astonishing is that, in addition to frequently taking action within the cryptocurrency industry, Tether's layout has long expanded beyond the industry, covering various fields such as AI, brain-computer interfaces, agriculture, and sports.

In February, Tether announced that its subsidiary Tether Data is leading the development of the open-source platform BrainOS, aimed at democratizing the use of advanced brain enhancement tools.

In March, Tether announced it would spend approximately 10 million euros to acquire a 30% stake in the Italian media company Be Water, which owns the podcast production company Chora Media, Will Media, and the film production and distribution company Be Water Film.

In March, Paolo Ardoino posted on X, emphasizing that Tether plans to significantly recruit talent to support the development of its artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and data projects.

In April, Paolo Ardoino revealed in a recent interview that Tether plans to launch its own artificial intelligence platform in June (or September), which will be a peer-to-peer alternative to models like OpenAI, allowing users to control their own data and perform all reasoning, executing all complex AI logic on their own devices.

In April, Tether announced the completion of its takeover bid for up to 49,596,500 shares of common stock of South American agricultural giant Adecoagro S.A. at a price of $12.41 per share, totaling over $615 million.

In May, Tether announced the upcoming launch of QVAC (QuantumVerse Automatic Computer), which is an intelligent development platform that allows highly scalable AI applications and agents to run directly on local devices without relying on centralized services and cloud infrastructure, thereby protecting users from corporate access to private user data.

In June, Tether announced that it had officially requested to participate in the capital increase plan of Juventus Football Club in May and applied for a board seat. Tether currently holds over 10% of Juventus Club's shares, making it the second largest shareholder after the controlling party Exor.

In mid-June, Tether announced it has strategically acquired equity in Elemental Altus, a publicly traded gold royalty company based in Canada. This strategy aims to integrate long-term stable assets such as gold and Bitcoin into its ecosystem.

At the end of June, Paolo Ardoino publicly stated again that Tether's investment of $200 million in the brain-computer interface company Blackrock Neurotech last April is much more advanced than Elon Musk's Neuralink.

Just yesterday, Paolo Ardoino announced that the open-source password manager PearPass developed by Tether has started testing and will soon be open-sourced on the platform...

The best days are now in the past.

With its unparalleled advantages in stablecoin liquidity and adoption, Tether, with only 150 employees, achieved approximately $13 billion in profit in 2024, making it the most profitable company in the cryptocurrency industry and even the entire world.

However, the best days are now in the past, and the wild growth phase of stablecoins is about to come to an end. In the future, Tether will inevitably face new and old competitors in the market who have stronger backgrounds, more thorough compliance, and stricter audits.

For Tether, it is time to look to the future. Based on the recent layout rhythm, it seems that they have realized this.