Who owns A $200 billion crypto company?
Tether Holdings underpins the USDT stablecoin, which settles trades around the clock across global exchanges. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) estimates the company's own value at roughly USD200 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies on earth. In early 2025 it relocated its base from the British Virgin Islands to El Salvador. But no one seems to know who owns the company.
Tether has never publicly disclosed its full ownership structure. ICIJ's reporting
shows co-founder Giancarlo Devasini held 100 percent of the British Virgin Islands parent company in 2016. That year, he transferred more than half his shares to Jean-Louis van der Velde, with additional shares going to DigFinex Inc.
By 2018, Devasini held roughly 43 percent, van der Velde 15 percent, and current chief executive Paolo Ardoino 3.5 percent. Kristian Hansen, Christopher Harborne and Stuart Hoegner held further stakes.
Recent filings show Devasini now holds a majority voting interest. Forbes estimates his net worth at USD89.3 billion, ranking him the 22nd richest person on earth. That fortune rests largely on a company whose ownership the public still cannot verify independently. Ardoino's stake is estimated separately at 20 percent.
Law professor Renée Jones
told ICIJ it is “a concern to have that much wealth and power built up within a small group of people with so little disclosure.”
Tether's move to El Salvador compounds the problem. The British Virgin Islands was already a recognized secrecy jurisdiction. El Salvador has not signed international tax-transparency pledges. Jason Sharman, a Cambridge University professor of international relations,
told ICIJ that El Salvador is “one of the few places left” offering old-style secrecy. Tether has never released the results of a full financial audit, despite a USD41 million fine in 2021 for misrepresenting its reserves.
An official at the European Central Bank has separately
raised concerns about whether Tether's reserves are adequate to back the stablecoin in circulation.
A financial relationship runs in both directions between Tether and Howard Lutnick, the US Commerce Secretary. Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm Lutnick led before joining the Cabinet,
acquired rights to a five percent Tether stake potentially worth USD10 billion. Separately, Tether
provided lending to a trust benefiting Lutnick's children.
That lending helped finance his divestiture from Cantor Fitzgerald when he took the Commerce post. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden wrote to both Lutnick and Ardoino asking for details.
Neither Tether nor the Commerce Department responded to their letters.
