Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino issued a pointy rebuttal after S&P International assigned the corporate’s USDt stablecoin its lowest rating below the company’s five-tier threat framework.
to S&P relating to your Tether ranking:
We put on your loathing with delight.
The classical ranking fashions constructed for legacy monetary establishments, traditionally led personal and institutional traders to speculate their wealth into firms that regardless of being attributed funding grade…
— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) November 26, 2025
The downgrade, from “4 (constrained)” to “5 (weak),” was introduced Wednesday and primarily based on what S&P described as rising publicity to higher-risk property and ongoing disclosure gaps.
In response to S&P, Tether’s reserves now embody bigger allocations to Bitcoin, gold, company debt, secured loans, and different investments with “restricted disclosures” and publicity to credit score and market dangers.
The company additionally cited restricted transparency round custodians and counterparties, although it acknowledged USDt has maintained “a notable degree of value stability” during times of volatility.
Tether rejected the evaluation, saying it “strongly disagrees with the characterization offered within the report” and arguing that S&P relied on “a legacy framework” that doesn’t replicate the size or financial function of digital cash.
Ardoino went additional, characterizing the downgrade for instance of conventional finance resisting newer fashions.
He mentioned the corporate “put on[s] your loathing with delight” and argued that classical ranking methodologies have traditionally did not establish dangers in legacy establishments.
He added that established monetary gamers are “rising frightened when any firm tries to defy the power of gravity of the damaged monetary system,” and maintained that Tether is “the primary overcapitalized firm within the monetary trade, with no poisonous reserves.”
Tether, headquartered in El Salvador, says it has issued about $184 billion in USDt and maintains full backing by way of U.S. Treasuries and different reserve property.
The corporate mentioned it has “processed billions in redemptions whereas sustaining uninterrupted stability” and describes the stablecoin as “systemically vital monetary infrastructure” in rising markets the place it’s broadly used for transactions.
S&P launched its stablecoin ranking scale in 2023 to judge the chance profiles of digital property pegged to government-issued currencies.
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