Overview

• At Mercado Bitcoin’s DAC 2025, Wormhole co‑founder Dan Reecer said Tether and Circle are “printing money” by keeping Treasury yield while holders receive no returns.
• Tether reported $4.9 billion in net profit for Q2 2025, and reporting says the company’s valuation reached about $500 billion in a recent funding round.
• Projects such as M^0 and Agora are building infrastructure that routes yield to applications or end users rather than leaving all returns with issuers.
• Circle bought Hashnote for $1.3 billion earlier this year to link cash balances with tokenized money‑market collateral like USYC on blockchains.
• Tokenized money‑market funds total roughly $7.3 billion versus a stablecoin market above $290 billion, as Tether defends USDT as a non‑investment “digital dollar” and Fireblocks flags growing payment and FX use cases.