Arthur Hayes Fuels Tether IPO Speculations Amid $500 Billion Valuation Buzz

The Tether IPO chatter is up again, this time propagated by BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes.

It centers around the stablecoin issuers’ valuation, which some say could rival renowned companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Costco, and Coca-Cola.

Is Tether Considering Going Public?

According to Arthur Hayes, Tether going public could spell doom for Circle after the USDC stablecoin issuers’ IPO. BeInCrypto reported the success of Circle’s IPO, after the firm raised the cap for its IPO, which was initially oversubscribed 25x.

“Next up a US IPO. Bye bye Crcle,” wrote Hayes.

The remark followed revelations that Tether seeks funding at a $500 billion valuation. Reportedly, Tether is in talks with investors to raise as much as $20 billion.

The deal could push the stablecoin issuer into the highest ranks of the world’s most valuable private companies, like OpenAI and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, the company is considering a raise from a group of high-profile investors. The funds achieved will reportedly be channeled toward maximizing the company’s strategy across diverse business lines.

Tether is evaluating a raise from a selected group of high-profile key investors, to maximize the scale of the Company's strategy across all existing and new business lines (stablecoins, distribution ubiquity, AI, commodity trading, energy, communications, media) by several…

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) September 24, 2025

Meanwhile, community members see Tether’s move as an opportunistic raise while their leverage and market value are still at their peak.

“…what happens if yields fall back to 2%,” posed global macro investor Raoul Pal.

Notably, this is not the first time there has been buzz about a prospective Tether IPO. In June, market analysts valued the stablecoin giant at $515 billion.

Jon Ma, a builder on Artemis, said that such a valuation would make Tether the 19th most valuable company globally.

Despite the bullish projection, Ardoino clarified in June that Tether has no intention of going public, signaling confidence in the company’s current private structure and trajectory.

No need to go public.

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) June 7, 2025

Tether’s Prospective IPO Against Circle’s Public Listing

A dissection of Tether’s prospective IPO against Circle’s public listing accentuates Arthur Hayes’ sentiment.

As indicated, Tether looks to raise $20 billion at a $500 billion valuation. In comparison, Circle’s market cap is around $35 billion, making it a 14x difference.

Meanwhile, Tether’s USDT stablecoin has a market cap of $173 billion, approximately 2.3x that of Circle’s USDC ($73.6 billion).

Stablecoins by market cap size. Source: Stablecoins by market cap size.

In the same way, Tether is a significantly more profitable operation than Circle. This is partly due to the latter’s revenue-sharing agreement with the Coinbase exchange on a large portion of its USDC.

Unlike Tether’s USDT distribution in global markets, Circle has to rely heavily on Coinbase to move USDC at scale. This arrangement significantly reduces Circle’s profits compared to Tether, which does not have to pay for its distribution.

“…when evaluating an investment in a stablecoin issuer, [you have to ask yourself] how will they distribute their product?” Hayes noted in a recent blog.

While Circle made losses, Tether generated approximately $5 billion in Q2 2025. Of this, $3.1 billion was recurring (yield-based) income.

Excluding MTM (mark-to-market) gains, Tether’s $500 billion valuation is 40x last quarter’s annualized P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio. Therefore, there may not be an actual need for Tether to seek a public listing.

“…if they did, I think the founders would look to spin off a US-regulated entity separately and keep the non-business private,” one user noted.

Against this backdrop, the general sentiment is that the reason cannot be remotely related to the need for more money to generate other revenue streams.

All you need is $500k funding to never work a job again$500k funding x 2% per month = $10k/monthThat’s $120,000 a yearWith that kind of income you can live a good life pretty much anywhere in the worldAnd 2% per month is a really achievable goal tooJust work on…

— Tom (@t0mbfx) September 23, 2025

Notably, however, there remain a lot of unanswered questions about Tether’s profitability and investments.