Venezuelan Bolivar and U.S. Greenback banknotes and representations of cryptocurrency Tether are seen on this illustration taken Sept. 8, 2025.
Dado Ruvic | Array
Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, is evaluating a serious fundraising spherical, its CEO Paolo Ardoino, has confirmed, in a deal that would reportedly put the crypto firm’s worth on par with OpenAI.
The El Salvador-based firm is trying to elevate between $15 billion and $20 billion for a roughly 3% stake by means of a personal placement, in keeping with a Wednesday report from Bloomberg Information, citing two people acquainted with the matter.
Quickly after that report, Ardoino confirmed plans to fundraise on his official X account, saying that Tether was “evaluating a elevate from a particular group of high-profile key buyers.”
The funds would “maximize the dimensions” of Tether’s technique throughout present and new enterprise traces by “a number of orders of magnitude,” he added. These enterprise traces embrace stablecoins, distribution ubiquity, synthetic intelligence, commodity buying and selling, power, communications and media.
The transaction would contain new fairness relatively than present buyers promoting their stakes, sources informed Bloomberg.
The report stated one particular person near the matter warned that the talks are in an early stage, which suggests the eventual particulars, together with the scale of the providing, might change.
Nevertheless, the deal might finally worth Tether at round $500 billion, in keeping with the report. That will imply the crypto large’s valuation would rival among the world’s largest personal firms, together with SpaceX and OpenAI. OpenAI’s fundraising spherical earlier this yr valued the tech firm at $300 billion.
Tether, which was as soon as accused of being a felony’s “go-to cryptocurrency,” has been furthering its plans to return to the U.S. in latest months, given President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance. The corporate, earlier this month, named a CEO for its U.S. enterprise and for companies and establishments within the U.S. known as USAT, which might be regulated within the U.S. below the GENIUS Act.
Stablecoin USD Tether (USDT) is pegged to the U.S. greenback with a market cap that lately surpassed $172 billion. In second place is Tether rival Circle’s USDC stablecoin, which is price about $74 billion.