Tether Reportedly Made $13 Billion In Profits in 2024 

Stablecoin issuer Tether says it made $13 billion in profits during 2024.That “eye-popping” figure — as Bloomberg News put it in a report Friday (Jan. 31) — would put the closely-held company in the same company as Goldman Sachs. The Wall Street giant last year reported $14.3 billion in net income, with $53.5 billion in revenue.Tether does not issue audited financial statements — a practice, Bloomberg said, that has drawn criticism from regulators and crypto sector observers. Rather, the company files quarterly information as part of a third-party attestation by accounting firm BDO.The company said it issued more than $23 billion in USDT in the last three months of 2024, and has more than $7 billion in excess reserves.The Bloomberg report pointed out that Tether wound up in the spotlight this week during the confirmation hearing for Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary.Lutnick is head of Cantor Fitzgerald, one of Tether’s banking partners. During the hearing, he told senators that USDT has reached $143 billion amid booming demand for stablecoins. Cantor Fitzgerald has a convertible bond with Tether, and Lutnik said that stablecoins denominated in dollars should undergo audits.Tether’s apparent success comes as stablecoins are being “increasingly heralded as the bridge between traditional finance and the cryptocurrency world, have started to change that dynamic,” as PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.A recent report from the Federal Reserve of Atlanta said that while the future of stablecoins as a payment method is still undetermined, their adoption could someday rival credit or debit cards, with the  stablecoin market value “comparable to the gross domestic product of countries like New Zealand or Greece.” In addition, retailers such as Overstock, Chipotle, Whole Foods and GameStop have begun accepting stablecoins.“Unlike the usual crypto rollercoaster of value volatility, stablecoins bring an alleged dose of stability to the digital currency game, while at the same time being able to function as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account,” PYMNTS wrote.The increasing embrace of blockchain within financial services and payments can be seen in the strong interest among traditional financial firms, with Bank of America holding over 80 blockchain-related patents, and banking giants such as HSBC, Barclays, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS taking part in stablecoin-centric banking pilots.See More In: Blockchain, crypto, Cryptocurrency, digital assets, News, PYMNTS News, Stablecoin, stablecoins, Tether, USDt, Web3, What’s Hot