Tether CEO Bitcoin Conference Speech Transcript: We are not a money printer, we are an intermediary infrastructure provider.

Compiled | Odaily Daily Report (@OdailyChina)

Translator | Ethan (@ethanzhang_web3)

Translator's note: Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino's speech at Bitcoin 2025 may not have been as "data-bombarded" or "conceptually charged" as traditional Web3 executives, but it was surprisingly real, lively, and even a little darkly humorous. He likened Bitcoin to his childhood idol "Wukong" and gold as "Nature's Bitcoin", while complaining about API keys, emphasizing the aesthetics of peer-to-peer architecture, and throwing out the phrase: "We are one of the largest Bitcoin miners in the world." Paolo Ardoino's keynote speech was not so much a corporate roadshow as it was an expression of technical beliefs – Tether is trying to broaden the boundaries of stablecoins into a disintermediated infrastructure system, including currency (USDT), value peg (BTC), communication (Keet), intelligent platform (KUBA), and even how identity and sovereignty are constructed. **

Finally, it is most appropriate to conclude with one of his quotes: "The cloud is not our friend. Bitcoin is."

Note: In translating this speech, we have made every effort to preserve its first-person perspective and original linguistic feel, while also making appropriate refinements and adjustments to certain statements based on the English manuscript.

The following is the full text of Paolo Ardoino's speech:

Supporting Bitcoin is truly an exciting thing. I really like it. Please pay more attention to it.

In today's speech, I want to start with this picture. This is my favorite image. It showcases my feelings about Bitcoin: Bitcoin is like Wukong. I was born in the 80s, and Dragon Ball is part of my childhood memories, while Bitcoin is that powerful companion. Tether, on the other hand, is like another friend on the journey — its strength may not be as great, but it is always reliable and important.

Tether started from nothing in 2014 and created the world’s first stablecoin—USDT. We have been working hard to create products that people truly need. Just now, I updated a slide with data because this morning, our asset size just surpassed 153 billion USD. This is progress that we did not anticipate when preparing the slides two days ago.

I want to talk about a moment that deeply moved me, and that was the moment the pandemic began. Before that, Tether was mainly used as a medium for cryptocurrency trading. But since the pandemic started, it quickly transformed into a "digital dollar" used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, becoming a part of their lives.

More importantly, since 2022, we haven't even had a formal marketing team. So I can't say that this growth was achieved through "good operations" or "smart advertising." The fact is: when you create a product that people truly need, it will naturally grow and spread through word of mouth.

Some data that you might be interested in: Last year we achieved a profit of 13 billion dollars. Currently, we hold over 120 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds. In addition, we have also begun to invest heavily in Bitcoin. As a company, we already own over 100,000 Bitcoins.

We also hold about 50 tons of gold. Yes, I know that many Bitcoin supporters don't like gold very much, and even refuse to talk about it, as if gold threatens Bitcoin's position. But I don't think so. Bitcoin is perfect, while gold is imperfect; it does not compete with Bitcoin, it competes with fiat currency.

I personally feel that gold can almost be regarded as the "primitive bitcoin" in nature. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is the "digital gold" that we have created. We have about 420 million users in global emerging markets and developing countries, accounting for 62% of the 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 the local currency depreciates 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 think it is a company that stands in stark contrast to traditional tech companies and financial institutions. Financial and large tech companies often rely on layers of intermediaries: financial intermediaries charge fees on each of our transactions, and tech giants control our data. Essentially, it's the same thing: we have lost sovereignty over both money and data.

Tether's goal is to provide tools through technology to help people break free from these intermediaries and achieve true individual sovereignty.

We are a company born from Bitcoin. Everyone in the company loves Bitcoin. Our headquarters is located in the Bitcoin country—El Salvador. This country has suffered from gang and violence for 20 years, but now, under the courageous leadership of the president, it has achieved transformation. Politicians can really make a change, and we are seeing similar transformations in the U.S.: more and more politicians are beginning to understand the importance of Bitcoin for the country and the world.

One thing we are proud of is that we not only buy Bitcoin but also participate in mining ourselves. Yes, by the end of this year, we may become the largest Bitcoin mining company in the world - surpassing all listed companies.

Many people ask: You already hold so much Bitcoin, why still mine? The answer is: Bitcoin mining is our hedging strategy for our own assets. We are not only holders of Bitcoin, but also participants in network security. We use our computing power to protect the security of this network.

We're also pushing ahead with infrastructure development, such as the launch of the WDK (Wallet Development Kit) to help every company, app, website, and AI agent connect to a non-custodial Bitcoin wallet. I don't think that the AI agent of the future should be connected to the escrow service through APIs, but should have its own independent wallet, which can be given assets and perform tasks for humans, rather than being limited by the rules of a certain company.

Recently we released our own AI platform, KUBA, inspired by Asimov's 1956 short story The Last Question. The question we want to answer is, "How do you reverse the entropy of the universe?" "It's all about local inference and works on any device: everything from $30 Android in Africa to high-performance servers. We want to create AI that is decentralized, society-serving intelligence, not a tool to extract user data and make profits for businesses.

We have also invested in the Plan B network and are its biggest supporters. While "Plan B" has a different meaning in the U.S. (laughs), we're giving it a whole new meaning: everyone should have their own Plan B when Plan A fails—the ability to sovereignize money and communicate technology.

We also collaborate with global universities through the Tether Education Program to promote Bitcoin education; invest in the BTC Pay Server open-source project to advance Bitcoin payment infrastructure; partner with the city of Lugano, Switzerland to host the Plan B Summit and sponsor local football clubs to bring the Bitcoin brand to European stadiums; we also joined forces with Fulgur to create a venture capital fund to invest in Bitcoin startups.

We partnered with the video platform Rumble and invested $775 million, which also has its own Bitcoin treasury. We will launch a Bitcoin-centric wallet product to make it easier for more people to get started.

In addition, we have developed a peer-to-peer communication application, Keet. It is still in alpha testing, but it already supports peer-to-peer distribution of high-frequency voice, text, video, files, and more, without a central server. We want to prove that the "cloud" is not our friend, it is just an illusion that has been imposed on us, a tool used to extract our data. **

Finally, I would like to thank everyone. I know I spoke a bit long, but it is an immense honor for me to share this content here in the United States with all of you colleagues. Together, we strive for the future of Bitcoin.

Thank you, everyone!