Stablecoin issuer Tether intends to double its workforce within the next year to strengthen areas such as compliance. By mid-2025, the company behind the USDT stablecoin anticipates expanding its headcount to approximately 200 employees, according to Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino.
Tether also plans to increase staffing in its finance department, which oversees the $118 billion in assets backing USDT.
Tether’s Workforce Expansion
With a relatively small team, Tether has grown into a financial giant, raking in a net operating profit of $1.3 billion in the second quarter of 2024, fueled by its leading stablecoin. In comparison, major crypto exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase employ large workforces.
Commenting on the same, Ardoino told Bloomberg in an interview on August 8th,
“We are very proud of the fact that we are very lean and we want to remain lean because we want to be flexible. We are very careful when we hire people, we hire only senior people.”
Over the past two years, Tether has invested in companies like Northern Data Group and the US-listed miner Bitdeer Technologies Group, with plans to continue its investment activities. A June report revealed that just 15 people manage these investments. But Ardoino expressed caution about expanding the workforce too rapidly.
“There is nothing that I hate more than all those companies, especially Silicon Valley companies, that hire hundreds of people during the bull runs to fire them as soon as there is a downturn in the market. That I think is one of the most unfair things you can do to employees.”
Scrutiny Over USDT Misuse
Ardoino said that monitoring for potential illicit activity involving USDT on the secondary market, such as trading on exchanges and OTC desks, requires different types of tools that are much more automated. While the primary market involves direct transactions with Tether, the company has faced scrutiny over USDT’s illicit use. A Wall Street Journal report in April highlighted its use by Russian arms smugglers to evade US sanctions.
Tether, on the other hand, has continued to maintain that it is cooperating with global authorities to prevent illegal use of USDT. It partnered with blockchain surveillance company Chainalysis in May to enhance the monitoring of transactions on secondary markets involving its tokens.
The surveillance system is designed to ensure compliance with international sanctions and detect illicit transfers, including potential terrorist financing, helping Tether identify risky or illicit crypto wallets.