Compiled | Ethan, Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Translator's Note: At the Bitcoin 2025 Conference, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino's speech was unexpectedly authentic, vivid, and even had a touch of dark humor. He compared Bitcoin to his childhood idol "Goku", referred to gold as "Bitcoin of the natural world", while criticizing API keys and emphasizing the aesthetics of peer-to-peer architecture, casually throwing out: "We are one of the largest Bitcoin miners globally." This keynote by Paolo Ardoino was less of a corporate roadshow and more an expression of technological faith - Tether is attempting to expand the boundaries of stablecoins into a disintermediated infrastructure system, including currency (USDT), value anchoring (BTC), communication (Keet), smart platforms (KUBA), and even methods of constructing identity and sovereignty.
Finally, ending with his quote could not be more appropriate: "The cloud is not our friend. Bitcoin is."
Note: In translating this speech, efforts were made to preserve its first-person perspective and original language sense, while referencing the English original manuscript to appropriately polish and adjust certain sentences.
Below is the full speech by Paolo Ardoino:
Supporting Bitcoin is truly an exciting thing. I really like it. Please pay more attention.
Today's speech, I want to start with this image. It's my favorite picture. It shows my feelings about Bitcoin: Bitcoin is like Goku. I was born in the 80s, and Dragon Ball was part of my childhood memories, and Bitcoin is that powerful companion. And Tether is like another friend on the journey - perhaps not as strong, but always reliable and important.
Tether started from nothing in 2014 and created the world's first stablecoin - USDT. We've been working to create products people truly need. Just now, I updated a slide with data, because this morning, our asset scale just broke through $153 billion. This was an advancement we didn't anticipate when preparing the slides two days ago.
I want to talk about a moment that moved me, which was when the pandemic occurred. Before that, Tether was mainly used as a medium for cryptocurrency trading. But from the pandemic's start, it quickly transformed into a "digital dollar" used by hundreds of millions globally, becoming part of their lives.
More importantly, from 2022 onwards, we didn't even have an official marketing team. So I can't say this growth was achieved through "good operations" or "clever advertising". The fact is: when you create a product people truly need, it naturally grows and spreads through word of mouth.
Some data might interest you: Last year we achieved $13 billion in profits. Currently, we hold over $120 billion in US Treasury bonds. Additionally, we have begun massive Bitcoin investments. As a company, we already own over 100,000 Bitcoins.
We also hold about 50 tons of gold. Yes, I know many Bitcoin supporters don't like gold, and even hesitate to discuss it, as if gold would threaten Bitcoin's position. But I don't think so. Bitcoin is perfect, while gold is imperfect. It's not competing with Bitcoin, but competing with fiat currency.
Personally, I think gold can almost be seen as the "primitive Bitcoin" of the natural world. And Bitcoin is the "digital gold" we've created. We have about 420 million users in global emerging markets and developing countries, accounting for 62% of decentralized trading volume. More meaningfully, about 35% of USDT users use it as a savings account - because they live in countries like Turkey, Argentina, and Vietnam, where local currency devalues at an astonishing rate, and they can only choose to save in dollars, with USDT being their most realistic option.
How do I view Tether? I believe it's a company in stark contrast to traditional tech and financial institutions. Financial and big tech companies often rely on layers of intermediaries: financial intermediaries charge fees from every transaction, while tech giants control our data. Essentially, this is the same thing: we lose sovereignty over both money and data.
Tether's goal is to provide tools through technology to help people escape these intermediaries and achieve true individual sovereignty.
We are a company born from Bitcoin. Everyone in the company loves Bitcoin. Our headquarters is in Bitcoin's country - El Salvador. This country experienced 20 years of gang violence and now has transformed under the courageous leadership of its president. Politicians can truly make changes, and we're seeing similar transformations in the US: more and more political figures are beginning to understand Bitcoin's importance to the nation and the world.
One thing we're proud of is that we not only buy Bitcoin but also participate in mining ourselves. Yes, by the end of this year, we might become the world's largest Bitcoin mining enterprise - surpassing all listed companies.
Many people ask: You already hold so many Bitcoins, why continue mining? The answer is: Bitcoin mining is a hedging method for our own assets. We are not just Bitcoin holders, but participants in network security. We use our computing power to protect this network's security.
We're also promoting infrastructure construction, such as launching WDK (Wallet Development Kit), helping every company, application, website, and AI Agent access non-custodial Bitcoin wallets. I don't believe future AI Agents should access hosted services through APIs, but should have their own independent wallets, be empowered with assets, execute tasks for humans, without being restricted by a company's rules.
Recently we launched our AI platform - KUBA, inspired by Asimov's 1956 short story "The Last Question". The question we want to answer is: "How to reverse the universe's entropy?" This platform focuses on local reasoning, compatible with any device: from $30 Android phones in Africa to high-performance servers, all supported. We hope to create AI that is decentralized and serves society, not a tool to extract user data and profit corporations.
We've also invested in Plan B Network, being its largest supporter. Although "Plan B" has different connotations in the US (laughs), we give it a new meaning: when Plan A fails, everyone should have their own Plan B - the ability to have monetary sovereignty and communication technology sovereignty.
We collaborate with global universities through the Tether Education Program to popularize Bitcoin education; invest in the BTC Pay Server open-source project to promote Bitcoin payment infrastructure; collaborate with Switzerland's Lugano city to host the Plan B Summit and sponsor local football clubs, bringing the Bitcoin brand to European football fields; we also created a venture capital fund with Fulgur, investing in Bitcoin startups.
We partnered with video platform Rumble, investing $775 million, and they also have their own Bitcoin vault. We will launch a Bitcoin-core wallet product to help more people get started easily.
Additionally, we developed a peer-to-peer communication app - Keet. It's currently in alpha testing but already supports high-frequency voice, text, video, file peer-to-peer distribution, with no central server throughout. We want to prove that the "cloud" is not our friend, it's just an illusion imposed on us, a tool to extract our data.
Finally, thank you very much. I know I've talked a bit long, but I feel incredibly honored to share these contents here, in the US, with all of you. Together, we're working for Bitcoin's future.
Thank you everyone!
