What is Tether?

The FASB stablecoin ruling grants cash-equivalent status only to stablecoins redeemable directly with an issuer (not via an exchange) and backed by cash or T-bills, structurally excluding Tether and intermediated redemption paths like Coinbase.

“FASB according to this rule the answer can be yes stable coins are cash or cash equivalent if the following things are true. You can cash out whenever you want, which means you need a direct relationship with Circle basically or Paxos. you can you must cash out with the issuer itself, not a middleman. So you can't use Coinbase. You have to go straight to Circle. And also the issuer itself backs every coin with real cash or short-term T bills, which is just genius compliant, which means not Tether.”

Circle and Paxos are positioned as the primary beneficiaries of the FASB stablecoin ruling, as their direct-redemption model and T-bill backing satisfy the new cash-equivalent criteria that Tether fails.

“FASB according to this rule the answer can be yes stable coins are cash or cash equivalent if the following things are true. You can cash out whenever you want, which means you need a direct relationship with Circle basically or Paxos. you can you must cash out with the issuer itself, not a middleman. So you can't use Coinbase. You have to go straight to Circle. And also the issuer itself backs every coin with real cash or short-term T bills, which is just genius compliant, which means not Tether.”

Ryan Sean Adams on the FASB stablecoin ruling effectively excluding Tether from corporate balance-sheet treatment.

“FASB according to this rule the answer can be yes stable coins are cash or cash equivalent if the following things are true. You can cash out whenever you want, which means you need a direct relationship with Circle basically or Paxos. you can you must cash out with the issuer itself, not a middleman. So you can't use Coinbase. You have to go straight to Circle. And also the issuer itself backs every coin with real cash or short-term T bills, which is just genius compliant, which means not Tether.”

The stablecoin TAM is smaller than widely believed over the next 2 to 4 years because the biggest opportunity is outside the US in retail, and Tether is capturing most of it.

“The biggest opportunity for stable coins continues to be outside the US, continues to be retail and Tether is capturing the line share of that. And I feel like that my point is that TAM is not as big I think as people want it to believe in the next two to three to four years.”