Four people owned 86% of Tether Holdings, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. The documents confirming the information date back to 2018.
The publication noted that the USDT stablecoin operator, with a market value of $68 billion, still does not disclose information to the same extent as relevant traditional institutions.
The company was founded by former plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini and Brock Pierce, an entrepreneur and crypto evangelist. The company was registered in the British Virgin Islands in September 2014.
Pierce soon left Tether, while Devasini remains its CFO.
“The U.S. would be better off if patriotic Americans like me still owned the company. The equity I gave up was probably $6 billion to $10 billion. Was it the right decision? I don’t know,” the WSJ quoted the entrepreneur as saying.
Devasini is an Italian citizen.
He also helped develop and launch the Bitfinex crypto exchange. The two companies have a lot of management overlap. For example, their CEO is Jean-Louis van der Velde. However, according to the WSJ, Devasini is making key decisions.
Pierce, through his company Internet Gaming Entertainment, was linked to Steve Bannon, who was once a strategist in the administration of US President Donald Trump. Tether executives did not agree on how to use this relationship, and Devasini issued the final veto to consider the issue.
Pierce bought a small stake in Tether in 2017 through his venture capital firm, Blockchain Capital. As of 2018, Devasini held 43 percent of the company’s shares, while van der Velde and Stuart Hogner each held 15 percent. The latter has been Tether’s general counsel since 2014.
