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Even by crypto’s often-surreal requirements, Tether has a peculiar historical past. The corporate was based in 2014 by Brock Pierce, a cryptocurrency evangelist who, as a baby actor, starred within the “Mighty Geese” films. He and his associate, Reeve Collins, later handed management of the agency to a former plastic surgeon named Giancarlo Devasini, who has saved a few of Tether’s belongings in a financial institution within the Bahamas run by one of many creators of the “Inspector Gadget” cartoon.
Tether has grown quickly. Final yr, it issued roughly 50 billion stablecoins, greater than tripling the worldwide provide. “If we’ve got to redeem until the final cent, we are able to do it,” Mr. Ardoino mentioned within the interview.
The corporate is operated by about 50 workers in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Its chief govt, JL van der Velde, is a Dutch businessman whose LinkedIn profile suggests he’s based mostly in Hong Kong; the corporate declined to verify his location. He and Mr. Devasini, the chief working officer, hardly ever converse publicly. Tether’s public face is Mr. Ardoino, who describes his colleagues as “regular individuals” amazed by the corporate’s progress.
“They didn’t assume initially that it might perhaps go so massive,” Mr. Ardoino mentioned. “They weren’t ready to be public individuals. There’s nothing unhealthy about it.”
At occasions, Tether has insisted that its stablecoins had been absolutely backed by U.S. {dollars}. However final yr, the New York legal professional common, Letitia James, called these claims “a lie.”
Just a few years earlier, a cryptocurrency change affiliated with Tether had misplaced $850 million in a enterprise deal gone bitter. To cowl the losses, the change, Bitfinex, took loans from Tether’s reserves, leaving the stablecoin partly unbacked, according to Ms. James’s investigation.
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