Tether's competitors are exerting increasingly more pressure to push the world's largest stablecoin issuer out of the crypto market, including political pressure aimed at reducing the firm's leading market share. According to Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, its competitors are working to "kill" the company.
As the world's largest stablecoin issuer, Tether has a market capitalization of more than $142 billion — over twice as large as Circle's USD Coin (USDC) with a market capitalization of $56 billion. However, Ardoino said in a recent X post that the company faces mounting pressure from competing firms and politicians.
"I'll leave it to you to define a competitor trying to use lawfare to kill an opponent, instead of focusing on better products," Ardoino added. Tether will continue to focus on its mission to promote global financial inclusion, particularly in underdeveloped economies, Ardoino said, noting that USDT is used by more than 400 million people and gains 35 million new wallets each quarter.
Despite the pressure, most altcoins won't see a widespread "altcoin season" rally in 2025, according to CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju. Ju wrote in a recent X post that projects with strong fundamentals and revenue-generating models could outperform the broader market, but "most altcoins won't make it."
Cryptocurrencies with potential exchange-traded fund (ETF) approvals, robust revenue-generating models and sustained investor attention may outperform the rest of the market, Ju said. However, he added that "The era of everything pumping is over."
According to IntoTheBlock senior research analyst Juan Pellicer, the current downturn may signal an incoming market capitulation, with significant liquidations and a drop in total crypto market cap to $3.13 trillion.
The hacker behind the $1.4 billion Bybit exploit has laundered more than $335 million in digital assets, with investigators continuing to track the movement of stolen funds. Crypto investor sentiment was hit by the largest hack in crypto history on February 21st.
US lawmakers have advanced a resolution to repeal the "DeFi broker rule," which requires brokers to report digital asset transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS broker regulation is set to take effect in 2027 and would impact Americans' freedom of choice in how they transact.
METAMask adds fiat off-ramp for 10 blockchains to improve crypto accessibility. MetaMask is expanding its fiat off-ramp services to support 10 additional blockchain networks, making it easier for users to convert digital assets into traditional currency.