Asia Blockchain Review recently had the pleasure to catch up with Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether.  Just to recap, Tether, is a blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stable-coin by market capitalization, and Compound, a decentralized lending market, are spearheading growth in the nascent decentralized finance (DeFi) space as USDT volume on the platform has surged above US$100 million. Paolo’s responses are as follows:

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to talk to Asia Blockchain Review. We greatly appreciate your time and consideration in this matter. First and foremost, how are things with you and the company as we navigate this new normal?

We have been doing well during this new normal, as you describe it. The pandemic has had a minimal impact on our ability to service our customers. We continue to provide an impeccable service to our customers. Our decentralized business model — which was designed to serve a global pool of customers across different time zones — has shown optimal business performance amid recent market turmoil.

According to Calvin Liu, Strategy Lead at Compound, USDT growth on Compound has been faster than the growth of any other asset in the protocol, by multiples. Tether has also become one of the most liquid markets in the Compound protocol and accordingly across all of DeFi. What’s your take on this?

USDT’s growth in volume on Compound and across all of DeFi reflects its position as the stable-coin of choice across DeFi platforms. The DeFi space is constantly looking towards Tether, as it is the most liquid, stable and trusted stable-coin. As Tether provides the same experience, issuance and redemption across multiple blockchains, it is able to serve and unify a variety of different communities.

Liu has mentioned that Compound’s COMP token, which began on Uniswap, will support a protocol that aims to enable friction-less borrowing of Ethereum tokens, thereby facilitating a positive-yield approach for the process of storing assets. Liu believes that effective yield positive for both supply and borrowing, and between 50-100% positive yield. What’s your opinion on this? 

Compound is part of a DeFi movement that is driving a nascent alternative financial system that is dis-intermediating the need for banks and trusted, centralized third parties. We’re gratified that Tether is playing such an important role in the Compound protocol.

According to the latest statistics, there are versions of USDT that work on Algorand, Ethereum, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni and Tron. USDT has grown to a market capitalization of US$9.8 billion, dwarfing the size of rival stablecoins by market capitalization, trading volume and number of users. So, what’s in your crystal ball for all this? What’s next? Where do we go from here? 

USDT will continue to grow and be the stable-coin of choice across the DeFi space. We’re driven to support and empower growing ventures and innovation in DeFi and the wider blockchain space. Instead of just being a stable-coin, Tether will continue to remain agile and keep its hedge on technical innovation. This will support the growing use of USDT in DeFi for a myriad purposes, and consolidate the world’s most trusted, stable and liquid stablecoin’s central position in the digital asset ecosystem.

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About the author

Anil Prabha

Editor In Chief

Anil started his career in journalism all the way back in 2003. After traversing the sphere of editorial, corporate communications and advertising, he has now come full circle and is back in the world of journalism. He believes in the power of the written word, and its ability to enthrall, delight and inform the reader.