The Tether hit piece in The Economist is unintentionally some of the best marketing copy you'll ever see (includes bangers like: "Tether’s efficiency makes money-laundering so easy anyone can do it"): - On Tether's Original Conception: "It was originally intended as a gateway to the crypto ecosystem, but it proved to be far more than that: it set money free." - On How Tether Works: "You convert your dollars, pounds or euros into tether, then transfer the tether to your mother on the other side of the world; she converts it into the local currency and can spend it on food, rent or anything else, without the banks keeping a big chunk of what you’ve given her. Who wouldn’t want that?" - On Tether's Value Prop: "You can use it as you would a dollar, but without any of the checks and scrutiny that come from moving actual dollars around. It is the financial equivalent of being able to turn up at the airport, open a secret door and go straight on to the plane, without any X-rays, passport inspections, customs controls or intrusive questions." - On Tether Reserves: "In January 2025 it owned bills worth $113bn. If Tether were a country, it would be between South Korea and the United Arab Emirates in the list of foreign holders of American debt." - On Tether's Scale: "In 2024 the company issuing tether made profits of more than $13bn, almost twice as much as BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. Considering it has only around 150 employees, Tether may well have the highest profit per employee of any company ever." - On Tether's Efficiency: "Money-launderers traditionally ask for at least a 10% cut of the sums they are cleaning. As far as British law-enforcement analysts can work out, Zhdanova was charging her clients less than 3% on each transaction. Tether’s efficiency makes money-laundering so easy anyone can do it." - On CEO Paolo: "Ardoino, a crypto-expert who joined as chief technology officer in 2017 before rising to become the public face of the company six years later, is a handsome Italian who dresses in stealth-wealth casuals. He speaks enthusiastically about what Tether does, without the jargon and arrogance often displayed by the promoters of other cryptocurrencies." - On Tether's Paolo Banking the Unbanked: "He is right that access to the formal financial system can be very difficult and expensive for people in developing countries. If they work abroad and want to send small remittances to their families for example, money-transfer companies will typically take a cut of about 10%. A tether transaction costs just a fraction of that." - On Tether's Regulatory Status: "There aren’t many other products that are as useful to criminals, and as much of a threat to the financial system, that have been allowed to flourish with so little regulation." - On Tether's Regulatory Moat: "law-enforcement agencies are reluctant to speak against the company even if they don’t need its co-operation currently, in case it comes back to haunt them when they need it in the future." END: GGWP Tether