Tether could get a $500 billion valuation, making its shareholder richer than Buffett

Tether Holdings, the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin USDT, is in talks with investors to raise up to $20 billion at a valuation of the entire company at $500 billion, Bloomberg sources said. This would make Tether one of the most expensive private companies in the world, the agency noted.

In addition, such a large deal will raise key executives and shareholders of the company among the richest businessmen on the planet. For example, the fortune of Tether chairman Giancarlo Devasini will reach about $224 billion, Bloomberg calculated. This will put Devasini in fifth place in Bloomberg's billionaires index: he will be right behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, Tether CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and several positions above Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

In addition, the fortune of Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and his predecessor, Jean-Louis van der Velde, will be about $95 billion each, which would put them in the top 20 richest people in the world. The capital of the fourth shareholder, Stuart Hoegner, would exceed $60 billion, Bloomberg estimates.

A Tether spokesperson did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.

If Tether approaches a valuation of $500 billion, it will be one of the most impressive examples of generating wealth through cryptocurrencies, Bloomberg notes. All four Tether shareholders would overtake the founder of the largest crypto exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who is now, according to the agency, the richest crypto billionaire with a fortune of $52 billion. By comparison, the fortune of Jeremy Allaire , co-founder of Circle Internet Group - a competitor of Tether - is estimated at $2.6 billion. Circle, unlike Tether, is a public company: it held an IPO in June.

Tether is the issuer of USDT, the largest by capitalization, which is pegged to the US dollar. A possible round of investments worth up to $20 billion involves issuing new shares rather than selling stakes to existing investors.

By comparison, ChatGPT artificial intelligence developer OpenAI was valued at $300 billion earlier this year.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor