Tether: More Than A Stablecoin - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2024

hello everyone um hard to beat uh the crypto F night I will try my best at least I can try to explain you how you can build a company that can go from 0er to 109 billion in market cap in 10 years so also today I want to present you not only usdt as a stable coin but tar as a live Mission tar as a brand what we are doing globally what we plan to do in the future um what we bring to the world right what we bring to our communities uh why we are different from our competition so many things so thank you for coming so teer to me um is more than a stable coin it started in 2014 with a simple idea it started with um um being the backbone across all the crypto exchanges 2014 was a completely different time in that time there were just few exchanges there was uh bitfinex Kraken bit stamp coinbase okay coin that's it right not not not much else Mont Goos was already gone or was on the brink to be done so the industry was super small um moving money moving Fiat from One exchange to another was super difficult it was taking days so the crypto Arbitrage uh was basically impossible you know Buy Low Bitcoin low on and exchange move the Bitcoin to an exchange where the price is higher sell Bitcoin on that exchange where the price is higher move the dollars that you got from the sale back to the exchange where the price is lower and U um reent repeat that um that thing is called Arbitrage and uh that was basically impossible in 2014 so tedar team had a simple idea let's use the best technology we had back then that Bitcoin brought to us called blockchain let's just put the dollar put a dollar on top of it super simple you know almost everyone could have had that right but what really changed is the execution the execution that um the team made over the years right amidst all the difficulties all the changes in the crypto industry you know all the players came and gone tedar has been a pillar a pillar of presence a pillar of trust uh over so many years it's 10 years this year will be our 10 year anniversary right from 0 to7 unfortunately I was forced to submit the presentation just a few days ago we were 107 today we are 109 things change rapidly um so just few numbers I think are interesting you know there is always you know in um in our industry there is a lot of fud over the years um I think Teter has been the most scrutinized company in the world not just in crypto just in the world right we have been uh subject to a lot of pressure a lot of Demands from Regulators from uh from Community uh from competitors and so on we always with stod the um the trial by fire we always proved that we are built differently so um in 2022 alone we were able to redeem in 4 hours $7 billion that was 10% of our reserves um in um just few days after in 20 days we were able to redeem $25 billion do that were more than 25% of our reserves so these are numbers that no player in the banking industry can afford no player in uh our industry can afford right we have seen how big players like FTX last year went down well two years ago now you know went uh down the bin because they couldn't withstand to a lot of redemptions lot of withdrawals right one thing is words and claiming you are stable and other thing is proving it constantly for 10 years that to your community that is always growing is more demanding it's more diverse so just few numbers um in the profits last year were great um 6 billion in profits we were named probably the most profit profitable company per per uh employee in the world um the uh reason of um of this profits is the because the market cap is so high we have we are exceeding $90 billion in US treasury bills um you know the US treasury bills are the closest thing you can have to a dollar bank note in uh in your bank account so um this brings and thanks to the profits that for the vast majority we kept these profits within our reserves within the stable coin we are now 106% collateralized so we all know that in the banking industry banks are doing fractional Reserve most of the banks are landing out up to 90% of their balance sheet you deposit something in the bank the bank take it out and land it out to someone else up to 90% % that is crazy on the other side you have players like tedar well actually only tedar um that is 106% collateralized so that $6 billion doar that we made in profit right they were rightfully profits for the shareholders we decided to keep them inside the company to further back the stable coin because when you are in an industry that is Ever Changing when you see Banks like Silicon Val Bank signature silvergate um credit SS that are failing right you want to prove that this industry is creating something different this industry can bring something new to the industry can prove that you don't have to you know lend out other people money in order to to to break a back so this is one of the reasons why you know the traditional Finance is upset with better is because you know how dare you to do something better than us and make more money than us while you are doing it so you know it's um it's something that I think many companies in our industry are facing this type of push back from the old guardo the traditional Finance but for us is super exciting because we found ourselves in a situation that is completely um that was completely um impossible to predict just few years ago the interest rates so high due to the inflation to the inflation uh that we all know about move push the central banks to increase the the interest rates and so as I said today tedar has more than 90 billion do in US treasury bills if you think that today we are u in UAE UAE has less than 90 billion Spain and Australia has less than 90 billion we are just we are if teder was a country we had we would be at the 20th Place in the list of countries holding more uh US debt just think about China two three years ago China has two trillion dollar in US debt today China has around 700 billion dollar in US debt so means that t holds around 15% compared to what China holds in US de it's crazy it's absurd that a company a small company started 10 years ago by a few people from the crypto industry bitcoiners at heart find themselves in situation to to hold such a huge amount almost more than the vast majority of the countries on the this Earth of US debt the also over the years we have been questioned on our um uh banking relationships and how we would you know improve them well first of all we had always solid banking relationships some of our competitors that were claiming oh we have we are the best we are the most regulated we have the best banking almost died last year because they were subject to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank so we are using Cy Gerald is um one of the top tier uh custodians in the US for um for for Securities and specifically for for treasury bills so it's something that over the years we improved right we we kept un we kep thinking how we could make it more solid how our product could be safer and safer for our user base so in order to make it safe of course we have to also make sure that we monitor our product properly over the years we helped to um to block 1.1 billion usdt from all the exchange scams all the you know pig pig Bing scams you know the romance scams all all this stuff we were we work proactively you have might have seen myself directly on Twitter working with the with the community getting feedback and doing our own research of course working with the law enforcement and and freezing These funds we are we were able already to return more than $100 million in of these funds that we were able to block and it's in progress to return the rest right so this is I think although we are an industry that um that uh celebrates decentralization I'm the F and um and um and um anti- censorship I'm the first person that believes in the importance on anti anti- censorship but the same time if you are sa coin if you are centralized simple coin if you want to work with strong solid banking partners and you have the tools to help your community you should use those tools in the best way possible so I'm really glad that we were able to help people that lost their lives savings because they were H their D5 projects were hacked their their friends were you know told them to invest somewhere they got scammed got rug pulled so all this this 1.1 billion amounts all to all the craziness that happen in the industry that we were able working with law enforcement to catch and freeze so we T is a global phenomenon we work with um over the years we worked with 124 law enforcement agencies in more than 40 different countries um we un boarded recently the FBI and the United States Secret services to help with their funds the victims should be able to get in timely fashion the funds back right of course we try our best is not always possible if you get scammed if you get hacked we have um we have an email address you can contact is called info requests at t.to you right we have an amazing team works again we work with law enforcement wherever you are we try our best to try to catch the funds before they move to somewhere else that cannot be tracked anymore or can be frozen anymore so um let's see one another important and interesting reason why tedar grew so much in the last years is the um is the focus on the uh on our user base who are our users so we all know that there are 3 billion people in the world that are unbanked five billion people in the world that are leing countries with high inflation these people the the unbanked people for example are are extremely uh popular in um in Central Asia in Asia in general but also in South America Central America in um in certain countries of Middle East and so on these are not bad people these are people that live in countries that are um too poor to be of interest of the banking industry especially the US dollar banking industry right if you these are people that earn 1002 200 $300 per month so they don't have huge saving accounts they don't have big checking accounts but so they the bank industry cannot make enough money on them to keep them as a customer so they are left alone so they look at around in their country their National currency is going down the bin they need something and of course they you could tell them oh lose use Bitcoin use this and that these other cryptocurrency but they don't have yet the time they have bigger problems than trying to understand exactly what is bitcoin the risks what are the cryptocurrencies what are the risks the only thing that they know and that can help them immedi immediately is the US dollar they cannot get the US dollar normally they turn to Teter they found Teter and now they spread the words to their family and friends and that's exactly how Teter got that big teder never had before 2022 a marketing team right so I wish I was able to tell you today oh we are 170 or 109 billion dollar market cap because we were great we were perfect we were beautiful and everyone loves us no people found the our product useful people found our product easy to use and they started using it and they start telling to their family and friends that's that's I think the most beautiful story that um you know someone could tell right when you know you create something that is useful and uh you don't have to spend much in marketing just because it works um last year we made 10 trillion um usdt in volume so usdt made uh $10 trillion in volume um we account for more than 300 million users of usdt around the world um again 90% well more than 90% of these people are leing in emerging markets in developing countries you will never find a person in Europe or in the United States leaving aside leaving aside defi you will never find a person in Europe and United States that is uh using stable coins for their day-to-day needs in Europe or in the US you don't need stable coins because you have the best banking rails you have the credit cards debit cards in the US you have today 1 trillion dollars of depth taken by with credit cards and debit cards with stable coins you cannot take depth right so you cannot have your crypto wallet go below zero is impossible so that's why in these jurisdictions where they have access to Capital to liquidity doesn't make any sense to to launch and use stable coins at least for day-to-day use but we are seeing how 300 million people good people that are left behind by the financial system need stable coins in in the Emerging Markets well some some um uh headlines you can see Argentina you can see um turkey is a huge market for USD you can see uh Nigeria is also a big Market everywhere there is a currency in Argentina think about that the Argentina pesos uh the appreciated 98% against the dollar in The Last 5 Years 98% in the Turkish Lea depreciated 80% against the US dollar in the last five years so if you're a person that works hard the entire year in uh in Argentina or turkey you are poorer at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year although you worked an entire year because everything that you buy in your country is likely to be imported from the outside so these people are honestly sick and tired especially I have many friends in Argentina they are they are risking the third default of course they find will find they will look around for a better solution the banking in Argentina doesn't allow them to hold dollars or if they can hold dollars if there is a default anyway those dollars will be taken from them so they want to manage their money directly they are sick and tired of the poor economical choices of their government USD is great for crossborder finance online Commerce the gig economy if you are you know an influencer You're Building um your online uh presence is uh you can be paid by any anyone everywhere uh remittances is I think is um one of the biggest use cases we are seeing in some countries in some Emerging Markets have more than 10% in certain cases of remittances as part of their GDP so of course they are looking now stable coins are facilitating that because when you have the classic traditional Financial companies that in order to send money uh to a foreign country es especially in to a developing country they will charge you 15% right imagine you work the entire month to send money home to your family and you get taken out 15% just to move the balance in in a database that is insane right that is something that has to change I'm really glad that with t we are forcing this the Old Guard of of Finance to have to adapt to a better tool that is eating their lunch as a saving tool again if you live in the merchant markets you don't have a bank account you this is using a stable coin like USD allows you to be to to start saving saving in cash was always difficult but now you can start building you can you have the new opportunity you have a new optionality that you never had but tedar is also um recently announced its expansion beyond beyond the finance so this is uh our logo that as many know um that is the logo for our financial platform uh t.to is where we issue the stable coin is where we have also other stable coins like that are gold is a is a great idea is a stable coin 100% backed by gold and um but today also we are launching a new website that um tells our story our story is much broader than purely stable coin is a story of innovation is a story of people that are in this industry because they see the need of a change they they are you know they are keeping the vast majority of all the profits that the stable coin is making inside the company reinvesting many projects projects that are aligned with our vision of this intermediation not only from Finance but for artifici artificial intelligence for communications for Education there is so much to do we hope that many of you guys that are here listening are going to join us in this journey so we have four pillars we have Finance power data and education so you might have seen some news about tedar investing in um in Bitcoin min and um and renewable energy so I'm a bitcoiner I think that um when in up to 19 2019 the the vast majority of Bitcoin mining was done in China everyone everyone was complaining today more than 50% of Bitcoin mining is done in the US of course you can say that us is a safer Place uh from from certain point of views on for for Bitcoin mining but the problem is that Bitcoin mining should never be concentrated in in such high quantity in a single country is a problem from the geopolitical point of view is a problem for the stability of could become a problem for the stability of the grid so with tar we realize that there is a problem Bitcoin mining we have the resources we started working with Uruguay Paraguay El Salvador and few other countries to to provide them the tools to start mining themselves we provide them our of course um uh our team we we we we give them all information our our contacts with the miners we invest ourselves we invest more than half a billion dollar last year of our own profits in Bitcoin mining just to make sure that Bitcoin mining can remain decentralized and distribute across the globe um also we realize that is unfair to to take energy from households and um and um production facilities so we focus on um on also building renewal Energy Solutions um for example in El Salvador we focus on um on um the renewable energy through uh the volcano Mining and the volcano U geothermal energy that is a brilliant beautiful solution that last many years many decades once you build it uh by the way all just to be clear all these Investments are done outside of T reserves so you saw that 106 billion dollar that we have well 107 plus 6% so we have $6 billion do inside the company on top of the 107 billion that we have to have well aside that we are doing all these things we are doing all the this Investments we are doing all this collaboration with other industry Partners right so that whatever happens to these Investments the stable coin will be safe will not have any issues we are extremely respectful to all the people that that are using our stable coin so on the risk management side we are taking the most serious steps to make it as safe as possible as I saying as I told you we are keeping $6 billion do of our own money to make it to to further it back um we we build we are building tools like um the other the other category the other pillar is called T data so we build open source peer top the the um communication platform called punch actually we launch a new website called called pear.

com I'm Italian so Pierce pears and so on has the same pronunciation for me so I make confusion so I came up with a new brand to oppos to Apple that is trying to centralize everything let's build a as fully decentralized communication Suite that is called um pair that is hosted on pair.com um you should try kit um is our first communication app is fully peer-to-peer no Cent server no fully private fully encrypted can scale two billion of users without any single cost for us is like bit torrent for communications so you know there is a just um a QR code if you want and before I get kicked out from the stage I know that I'm late we have recently invested in um in Northern data that is um again the the Mantra outside of our reserves with our own profits we invested in Northern data is a company that is that was uh that just acquired 20,000 Nvidia gpus why why a stable coin or a company that started for from being a stable coin is doing that because we have seen what happened with J 1.5 we are seeing what is happening with many uh AI companies they are turning evil they are using their their power for political bias we believe that is important to build a platform that leverage it that allows good companies that have that come from different places to build AI tools that are not politicized right so that is something that we strongly believe in we fortunately find ourselves in a situation where we have the resources to make that happen so if you have an interest of I have access to uh gpus in a fair way in an open way in a transparent way go to Northern data they have a beautiful website they can they they can help you right so we launched also an education initiative this is not a classic oh I'm going to teach you about usdt and the blockchain is um educational platform that aims to this Intermediate Education the word education especially after the pandemic completely pandemic completely changed so we believe that education is going to be more and more digital and there is nothing that uh we can do to stop it so uh it's better to embrace it and support it and build platform that first of all are protecting the privacy of of the people that are learning that um a platform that create the right incentives to have the highest quality of of of teachers and a platform that is not only again for just blockchain teaching but you can learn online marketing you can learn Plumbing on the uh on the courses that we are building you can be the best electrician possible it's um you know online education is not only for digital uh education is for everyone and everything um we launched uh quickly um uh recently a new initiative called planb network with led by jao Zuko uh one of the most important bitcoiner Max maximalist in the in in the world um and uh soon we are going to launch a new initiative called T AO we are making investments in biotech we believe that we got lucky honestly I again I wish I could tell you we were perfect and beautiful and uh everything we did be was because we we thought it from the first day actually as I said was is um would be an overstatement so we believe in the the power of giving back and reinvesting and so we believe that investing in technology that makes people life uh better is is the right thing to do and uh and I want to say finally that uh everything that we are doing is also thank to all of you guys that are using usdt because with the growth of USD we we are able to collect you know all this interest and in interest from um from the Investments and re investing in things that I think our community do care about so well this is still T um Evo and well we are doing everything because we believe in this interation as I said we need to fix the word we are trying to do it in a really simple way it's a small Drop in the Ocean and I understand but it's what we like to do so thank you very much this is our new logo and motto Unstoppable together thank you again