Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on Bitcoin’s Future. Why USDt Could Move to RGB Protocol on Bitcoin
In February 2025, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap, made a statement that caught Bitcoin circles by surprise. Speaking about the long-term trajectory of stablecoins, Ardoino suggested that one day USDt itself could become obsolete: not because stablecoins fail, but because Bitcoin’s monetary properties could make dollar-pegged instruments unnecessary for many use cases.
The interview context matters. At the time, Tether was already evaluating how to bring USDt natively to Bitcoin through RGB Protocol on Bitcoin, using client-side validation to issue stablecoins without sidechains, custodians, or wrapped assets, directly on Bitcoin’s UTXO model and transferable over Lightning.
Ardoino’s remarks, read against that backdrop, reveal a company thinking in decades rather than quarters: one that sees Bitcoin’s base layer, extended by RGB Protocol on Bitcoin’s infrastructure, as the long-term foundation for digital value transfer.
Six months later, Tether formally announced its plan to bring USDt to RGB Protocol on Bitcoin v0.11.1.
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