Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, reported over $13 billion in profit for 2024 on Friday, marking a groundbreaking milestone for the crypto firm. 

In just a year, Tether has apparently managed to more than double its then-astonishing 2023 profit of $6.2 billion. 

For context, the upstart crypto company’s profitability is now within striking distance of some of Wall Street’s most prestigious firms. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs reported a 2024 profit of $14.28 billion—within 10% of the earnings posted by Tether this morning.

As stablecoins have come to prominence in the global economy—as an increasingly crucial link between traditional finance and the booming crypto market—Tether has reaped the greatest rewards. The firm’s dollar-backed stablecoin, USDT, is by far the most popular of its kind, with a market capitalization in excess of $139 billion.

Issuing a stablecoin can be a tremendously profitable enterprise at scale, as Tether’s success has shown. To keep USDT steady at its dollar peg, the company holds tens of billions of dollars worth of fiat collateral—primarily in the form of U.S. Treasuries, which typically reap a few percentage points of interest annually. 

That interest can clearly rack up at the size of Tether’s operation. On Friday, the company reported that as of the end of 2024, it held over $143 billion worth of fiat assets in reserve to cover the roughly $137 billion worth of tokens it had in circulation at that point. 

“Tether’s Q4 2024 attestation reinforces our position as a global leader in financial transparency, liquidity, and innovation,” the company’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, said in a statement. “Tether continues to set the gold standard for stability and trust in the digital assets space.”

On Thursday, Ardoino announced onstage at a Bitcoin conference in El Salvador that USDT will soon be available on Bitcoin’s base layer and Lightning, a Bitcoin scaling network. The integration—a major milestone joining two of the most dominant forces in crypto—is likely to only further boost Tether’s centrality to global finance. 

With the company’s ascendance has also come increased scrutiny. USDT is popular not just among retail and institutional users, but criminal organizations as well—a detail that has not gone unnoticed by American lawmakers.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, faced questions during his confirmation hearing over the current lack of government oversight over Tether’s fiat reserves. 

Lutnick’s Wall Street firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, says it custodies billions of dollars worth of U.S. Treasuries for the crypto company—but no external auditor has yet verified that claim, or those assets, themselves.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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