 crypto doesn't need a blockchain, crypto doesn't need a token. There is no way to stop Bitcoin. This is Paolo Ardoiro, the CEO of Tether, the world's largest stablecoin operator. In this Cointelegraph interview, Paolo addressed the challenges facing Tether in the competitive stablecoin market and shared his crypto outlook for 2024. I would like to address this prediction that was made by Vanak. They say in a recent report that USDC is poised to flip USDT in 2024 as quote, more institutional adoption will reveal a preference for USDC already evident on newer L2 chains. So what do you think about this assessment? Well, it's an interesting assessment. The way I think about it is that of course Vanak is an institutional player and they only look at the market from the institutional point of view. For them, the market seems to think that the market is all about institutions and crypto is becoming mainstream in the institutional space. They're reality and look, we are extremely glad, as I said before, if our competitors keep growing and Tether doesn't have to be the first and the biggest stablecoins forever. So in general, I don't mind. What I think though is that I'm glad to see that our competition is focusing on the institutional space because that was never, never the goal and the interest of Tether and USDT. We are the stablecoin used by hundreds of millions of people. Our competition, while it focuses on Wall Street and the same guys in the transport in Europe, you know, the plastic institutions, the banks, the hedge funds, we are more than happy to leave that entire market for our competition. We believe that crypto is about something else, is about providing help and rails to the unbanked people. And we believe that is the only reason to exist, not maybe not the only, but is the main reason to exist of crypto and Bitcoin and stablecoins is to democratize the access to financial services. So if someone has a better luck in growing their market cap with institutional investors, that's fine. Yeah, that's interesting. So basically, USDT as the stablecoin of the elites and the USDT as the stablecoin of the people. Not long ago, Tether announced its collaboration with the US law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Secret Service. You helped these law enforcement agencies retrieving some funds, freezing some accounts of entities that were on the US sanction list. So I read some critical comments about that online regarding the fact that basically these comments were saying that now Tether won't be a neutral medium of exchange, but it will be subjected to the arbitrariness of US authorities. How would you reply to people that are concerned about that aspect? So first of all, every single stablecoin has freezing capabilities. The reason is fairly simple, right? Stablecoins, the dollar stablecoins, your stablecoins, they represent an underlying fiat currency and they are using the banking rails to operate. So how would be possible to not using the banking rails, using the banking system? Because from one side, people want the stability of USDT or stablecoins in general. And if you want stability, you pretend as a customer of a stablecoin that the stablecoin has safe assets, like TBAs, right? But on the other side, well, but you shouldn't have to comply with law enforcement. We use blockchains that are decentralized transport layers as a transport layer. But in the end, the stablecoin is centralized. So if we were not complying with law enforcement requests, so first of all, our job, our stability to the stablecoin would not be guaranteed. Because of course, if you are not complying with real world laws, then the stablecoin itself could be impacted. So it's important to understand that there is a huge difference between a stablecoin and a big coin. If you know it's something that is untouchable, that is unstoppable, that is resistant to the wrath of God, you use Bitcoin. If you want to have access to the dollar and dollar in your pockets and you want to use it in a better way, cheaper way, faster way, in a more resilient way, then your cash or in your bag count in dollars, use USDT. Right. So you mentioned Bitcoin. So I would like now to switch the attention to Bitcoin, specifically to a prediction that was made by, I believe, your friend Samson Mao in a previous interview with us was very bullish. She said that in 2024, he expects Bitcoin to reach $1 million price because of the combination effect of the halving and the ETF approval, which he expects to be approved early next year. So what do you think about this prediction? Well, Samson is a good friend and anything that he will say below his number, he will call me a bear. A few years ago for Bitcoin, many of the institutional investors were calling Bitcoin something a product only for criminals. And now they are jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon. So I think we should be happy about the result, about the fact that we called them out. Now we called their hypocrisy out and now they are joining the Bitcoin ranks or at least on the face, if they are joining the Bitcoin ranks. But in the end, the more we go ahead, you know, the price of course matters as important. But the price is a reflection of the fact that there is no way to stop Bitcoin, full stop. Coming back to stablecoins, stablecoins are great because they are probably the only cryptocurrency that has reached sort of mass adoption with a use case that has nothing to do with speculation. What will it take for something like that to emerge in the crypto space in 2024? Will we see something like stablecoins, another killer use case emerge? And what could that be according to you? Well, there is a little bit of distinction to be made. People will decouple the need of a token and the need of a blockchain from the pure innovation, right? Real world ecosystem as I like to call it is a set of tools, could be, I don't know, a booking system, could be a Nuber competitor, could be everything built on this new dogma of being decentralized and leveraging cryptography to enhance privacy and to cut intermediaries. The thing that I think is it will not survive in 2024 or will keep going down in interest is yet another token, right? I think we are going to not leave that moment anymore, right? So everyone that today comes and say, well, I have this new token because I have this great project. I mean, I hear more and more voices telling that person, you know, stop, we don't need another token. So, you know, real world applications are in real world ecosystem are things that people need in their daily life. You are a teacher at school or you are basically a musician. What's your need in your life? What is the thing you use throughout your day that could be improved through cryptography and decentralization? You mentioned the competitor of Uber or competitor of booking system, but built on a decentralized rails. What is the obstacle that still prevents that from reaching the masses according to you? A simple word and the word is that you are or we are referred to is greed. Someone could implement some of these tools through a blockchain, but the blockchain is the worst tool to implement some of these use cases. If you were to implement a peer-to-peer Uber, for sure and truly peer-to-peer and truly decentralized, it would not have, of course, any point of failures and it wouldn't need a token, right? It could be used Bitcoin or USDT for payments, but it wouldn't need yet another token. So ask yourself why a VC or why a person should build something that will not yield them much money? Because if it's truly peer-to-peer, if it's truly decentralized, why it means that it doesn't have any point of failure and a token is a point of failure? Because think about what is happening with the SEC, right? So if many projects that issue tokens are now on in the crosshairs of the SEC. So because most of these tokens are actually centralized in the hands of a small group of people, making it more likely to be a security. So if you were to do something unstoppable, something perfect, it would not have a token and so it wouldn't have a blockchain because blockchains are slow because they require global shared state. But then that system is not related to crypto in any way, right? Because it doesn't rely on a token nor on a blockchain. Is it that correct? But here is the point, right? So you said it's not related to crypto because doesn't rely on a token or blockchain, but crypto means cryptography. So peer-to-peer, so it actually relates to crypto and the fundamental values of crypto, that is cryptography for privacy and for attesting the truth without the need of exposing yourself, right? The fact that crypto, blockchain and tokens are correlated is in a way is true, but also is also a lie in the sense that crypto doesn't need a blockchain, crypto doesn't need a token. BitTorrent didn't have a blockchain and was decentralized. Then do you need a token to be decentralized? No, of course not. You just need the cryptography to attest who you are with zero knowledge proof or other systems. And that's the beauty of it. Awesome. I think that's very interesting. Crypto is not equivalent to blockchains or tokens, so that's a very interesting take. And yeah, let's see how everything is going to play out in 2024. And yeah, let's be in touch for next year, Paolo. Thanks a lot for talking to us today. Thank you Giovanni for your time. Always a pleasure.