Today in crypto: Tether CEO hits back at S&P fear, uncertainty, and doubt, Strategy CEO Phong Le says Bitcoin would only be sold if the company’s stock falls and funding options disappear. Meanwhile, Nasdaq is aiming to move as possible on its tokenized stocks proposal.
Tether CEO hits back at S&P fear, uncertainty, and doubt
Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of stablecoin company Tether — the issuer of the USDt (USDT) dollar-pegged token — issued a response to the fear, uncertainty, and doubt from crypto influencers and the S&P Global ratings agency about Tether and its dollar-pegged token.
The Tether Group’s total assets in Q3 2025 totaled about $215 billion, while total stablecoin liabilities accounted for about $184.5 billion, according to Ardoino. He also said:
“Tether had, at the end of Q3 2025, about $7 billion in excess equity, on top of the about $184.5 billion in stablecoin reserves, plus about another $23 billion in retained earnings as part of our Tether Group equity.”
The pushback occurred in response to S&P Global, one of the world’s top financial ratings agencies, downgrading USDt’s ability to maintain its peg to “weak,” the lowest rating on its scale.
Strategy will sell Bitcoin as ‘last resort’ if mNAV drops, capital is unavailable: CEO
Strategy would consider selling Bitcoin only if its stock falls below net asset value and the company loses access to fresh capital, CEO Phong Le said in a recent interview.
Le told the What Bitcoin Did show that if Strategy’s multiple to net asset value (mNAV) were to slip under one and financing options dry up, unloading Bitcoin becomes “mathematically” justified to protect what he calls “Bitcoin yield per share.”
However, he noted that the move would be a last resort, not a policy shift. “I would not want to be the company that sells Bitcoin,” he said, adding that financial discipline has to override emotion when markets turn hostile.
Strategy’s model hinges on raising capital when its shares trade at a premium to NAV and using that money to buy Bitcoin (BTC), increasing BTC held per share. When that premium disappears, Le said, selling a portion of holdings to meet obligations can be acceptable to shareholders if issuing new equity would be more dilutive.
Nasdaq crypto chief pledges to ‘move as fast as we can’ on tokenized stocks
The US Nasdaq stock exchange is making SEC approval of its proposal to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange a top priority, according to the exchange’s crypto chief.
“We’ll just move as fast as we can,” Nasdaq’s head of digital assets strategy, Matt Savarese, said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, when asked whether the SEC could approve the proposal this year.
“I think what we have to really evaluate where the public comments come back in and then answer and respond to the SEC questions as they come through,” Savarese said. “We hope to kind of work with them as quickly as possible,” Savarese said.