According to Tether executives, tokenizing fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar is the biggest innovation since the invention of fiat currency and will enable new mechanisms in global finance in the coming years.
William Quigley, co-founder of stablecoin giant Tether and decentralized exchange WAX, believes the global economy is likely to transition to tokenized currencies within the next decade. He praised tokenization technology during a fireside chat at the FT Crypto and Digital Assets Summit on May 9.
“Rarely is there a technological innovation that is so perfect that it has no drawbacks. “You can only strengthen fiat currencies by tokenizing them.” Quigley added that tokenized fiat currencies or stablecoins like Tether (USDT) could one day earn interest and returns on holding digital assets.
The Tether co-founder said:
“I was wondering why my checking account wasn’t paying me any interest. And they said they can reap the incredible benefits of electronic banking. So that could happen at some point. “But right now, people are so happy with the tokenization of the dollar that the idea of giving up interest hasn’t really been an attractive issue.”
Quigley went on to say that there are “trillions” sitting in U.S. bank accounts that are not paying interest. According to executives, people prefer such accounts because they value banking services.
“They want to go to the ATM. They want to use ACH. So you’re basically paying for that service by giving up interest,” he said.
During the fireside chat, Quigley also shared the story of how he got involved in cryptocurrency and co-founded Tether, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization and the most traded cryptocurrency today.
Related: Tethernet recorded $4.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2024. Most of it comes from Bitcoin and gold.
Quigley said many of the ideas came from his passion for the game. He said, “In the late 90s, the concept of in-game items became a big issue in the gaming world. There were many people who wanted to trade in-game items, so trading through barter was not efficient.”
“So my partner came up with the concept of running a digital escrow service where people could pay for these items with cash. Now, back then, there was no easy way to use fiat currency on the internet,” Quigley said. The Tether co-founder noted that he was one of PayPal’s first institutional investors.
magazine: What do cryptocurrency market makers actually do? liquidity or manipulation