Bitcoin, it should never be pushed down the throat of people. It should have been optional from the beginning. But most importantly, the country is buying Bitcoin every single day with their treasury so while they reach an agreement with the IMF, the commitment of the country to Bitcoin is not changing, they are doubling down on education and crypto payment infrastructure.
We don’t want Bitcoiners to be equal to the fiat maximalists that are forcing fiat to everyone and forcing acceptance of fiat to everyone. We want Bitcoin to be optional, to be chosen because it’s the best way to pay, not because it’s the forced way to pay.
AT: The United States now has a pro-crypto President Trump. How do you see the development of crypto regulation there now? Will Tether consider expanding its presence in the U.S.?
PA: So, the U.S. is going to be a very interesting development. With USDT we don’t have at this moment plans to enter the US, but we definitely are planning to meet the requirements, if any, that will be included in the upcoming stablecoin legislation.
We believe that the US is going to be very, very important mostly as a jurisdiction that all the other countries are looking at. The previous administration was kind of against it but now it was made very clear from the new administration that crypto and artificial intelligence are high priorities for the country.
So while we don’t plan to enter the US at this moment, we believe that this clarity at the level of regulation, legislation and support from the administration is very important and will also allow the adoption of USDT outside the US at a much faster and higher rate.
AT: Why don’t you have plans to expand in the U.S.? Is it because of the current regulations?
PA: Not really. I think that every company needs to pick its own battles. There are 1.3 billion people in the world that don’t have bank accounts, they are called unbanked. They are not bad people, but they are just too poor of interest to banks.
The U.S. is a market that has 20-30 payment ways that you can pay with: PayPal, cash, bank wires, credit card, debit cards, you name it. So there is an incredible competition. And outside the U.S. it’s very difficult to pay in dollars, and everyone wants U.S. dollars. So anytime you build a company, you have to think about who your audience is and which battles you should pick.
AT: Getting back to El Salvador, can you tell how you see the crypto ecosystem here?
PA: I think that we are going to see a growth in the crypto ecosystem, a very rapid one in the next few years. Especially our move here to El Salvador raised a lot of excitement. We are going to build a tower, a very tall tower, probably 70 floors, the biggest tower in El Salvador and one of the biggest and highest in the region.
