Paolo Ardoino says 650 million people decentralized US debt, but Tether still controls the T-bills

Paolo Ardoino offered a striking answer to a familiar U.S. debt problem: replace concentrated foreign buyers with hundreds of millions of stablecoin users.In an Aug. 31 episode of The Wolf of All Streets, the Tether CEO said the company had created “the decentralized ownership of the US debt” through 650 million people who were “basically holding some US Treasuries.” His point was about concentration risk. Unlike a foreign government, hundreds of millions of users are unlikely to decide together to sell U.S. debt in a single morning.The macroeconomic intuition has force. Demand for USDT gives Tether funds that it can place in a Treasury-heavy reserve portfolio. But calling token users owners of government debt collapses several different relationships into one. Tether’s own documents say users own USDT, eligible verified customers have a personal contractual right to redeem, and Tether International owns and manages the reserve assets.The 650 million figure is also attributable to Tether, not an independently established count of Treasury investors. In an Aug. 13 audit announcement, the company said more than 650 million users across emerging markets rely on Tether daily, without p...