Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reports 30 million new USDT wallets every quarter

Tether is adding new wallets at a pace that would make most fintech companies weep into their pitch decks. CEO Paolo Ardoino says the company’s USDT stablecoin is onboarding more than 30 million new wallets every single quarter, a growth clip that has pushed the total user base to approximately 500 million wallets.

The quarterly additions aren’t just a rough estimate Ardoino throws around at conferences. In Q3 2024, Tether recorded 36.25 million new USDT wallets, representing an average quarterly growth rate of about 9%.

By November 2025, Ardoino pegged the total at around 500 million wallets concentrated heavily in emerging markets. Projections suggest that figure could stretch past 530 million by early 2026 if the current pace holds.

Over 100 million users reportedly hold USDT on centralized exchanges, meaning the actual footprint of Tether’s stablecoin extends well beyond what blockchain explorers can count.

On the supply side, Tether’s attestation covering the first three quarters of 2025 showed 174.4 billion USDT in circulation, backed by what Tether says is a robust portfolio of US Treasuries.

In countries where the local currency loses purchasing power faster than you can spend it, a dollar-pegged digital token isn’t a novelty. It’s a financial lifeline. Ardoino has consistently framed USDT’s expansion as a financial inclusion play, and the wallet data from emerging markets supports that narrative. People use it for remittances, savings, and everyday transactions in places where traditional banking infrastructure is either expensive, unreliable, or simply absent.

For context, PayPal took roughly two decades to hit 400 million active accounts globally.

Circle’s USDC has made meaningful inroads with institutional clients and regulatory compliance, but Tether’s grassroots adoption in emerging markets is a fundamentally different competitive moat.

USDT serves as the primary quote currency on most major exchanges outside the US. When Tether’s supply grows, it typically signals fresh capital entering the crypto ecosystem, either through direct minting by institutional counterparties or organic demand from users converting fiat into stablecoins.

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