The per capita profit is 85 million, and the most profitable business in the world is not AI.

Per capita profit around $85.62 million, nearly 300 times Goldman Sachs, and 85 times Nvidia.

Article by: Clow

In 2024, a company called Tether delivered a performance that stunned Wall Street.

$13 billion in net profit, about 150 employees.

Per capita profit around $85.62 million, nearly 300 times Goldman Sachs, and 85 times Nvidia.

This isn’t a unicorn AI startup or a top hedge fund. It’s just a stablecoin issuer—the company that issues USDT.

When these numbers circulated in the financial world, many people’s first reaction was: How is this possible?

But if you understand Tether’s business model, you’ll see that it’s not just possible, but even inevitable.

01 The most profitable business in the world

Tether’s profit logic is known in the industry as the “Stablecoin Float Game.”

The rules are simple: you give Tether $1 and get 1 USDT in return. Tether takes your money and buys U.S. Treasuries.

U.S. Treasury yields have long maintained an annual rate above 5%, while USDT never pays any interest.

The difference belongs entirely to Tether.

By the end of 2025, Tether’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries will total up to $141 billion, making it the 17th largest holder of U.S. debt globally, surpassing Germany and South Korea.

Just from U.S. Treasuries alone, Tether generates over $4 billion in cash flow annually.

And that’s just the first layer.

The second layer involves gold and Bitcoin. Tether holds about $17 billion worth of gold and over 96,000 Bitcoin. The sharp rise in gold prices in 2025 has brought an additional floating profit of over $5 billion.

The third layer is liquidity premium. What do those who forgo 5% Treasury yields get in return? Digital dollars that can be used at any time in Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria. For markets trapped in high inflation and foreign exchange controls, this liquidity is more valuable than a 5% annual yield.

Essentially, Tether is a global “shadow bank” without branches or tellers, operating year-round to capture the huge spreads overlooked by the inefficient traditional financial system.

02 Breaking down the walls of traditional payments

The SWIFT system was built in the 1970s. Half a century later, its core logic remains unchanged: intermediary banks relay messages through multiple nodes, taking 3 to 5 business days at best, with fees up to 7%.

A payment from the U.S. to Nigeria must go through the sender’s bank, intermediary banks, and the recipient’s bank, each charging their own fees.

Plus, these banks operate only during business hours. A transfer initiated on Friday evening might not start processing until Monday.

In contrast, a USDT transfer on the Tron network can reach the recipient’s wallet in under $1 and 30 seconds, operating 24/7, all year round.

The cost difference is staggering. Traditional cross-border B2B payments typically have total fees between 1.5% and 7%, personal remittances sometimes exceed 11%; while stablecoin networks usually cost only 0.5% to 2%.

The deeper impact is on “reach.”

Hundreds of millions of adults worldwide still lack bank accounts. But with a phone and internet access, they can create a crypto wallet and connect to global trade. In Africa and Latin America, USDT has become a common tool for small and micro enterprises to pay international suppliers.

By 2025, the new generation of Web3 POS systems will use NFC technology for “tap-to-pay,” bringing crypto payments to retail checkout counters.

This wall is being broken down from all directions.

03 Pay-Fi: The rewriting of money logic

Payment + finance, a new term: Pay-Fi (Payment Finance).

Traditional payments solve the problem of “money moving from A to B.” Pay-Fi aims to solve the problem of “money moving from A to B while earning interest along the way.”

Protocols like Huma Finance are doing this: tokenizing corporate accounts receivable, providing instant on-chain financing through liquidity pools, easing prepayment pressures in cross-border trade. By early 2026, Huma’s total transaction volume has exceeded $10 billion, with real-time T+0 clearing attracting increasing attention from traditional financial institutions.

The underlying infrastructure war is also ongoing. Ethereum Layer 2 solutions using Rollup technology significantly reduce on-chain transaction costs; Celestia and EigenDA further lower data storage costs, enabling large-scale micro-payments. Meanwhile, Tron, with its massive USDT holdings and ultra-low transfer fees, remains the busiest stablecoin settlement network globally.

The stablecoin market itself is also diversifying. USDT dominates offshore payments and emerging markets with about 59% market share; USDC, with its compliance and transparency, has gained favor among licensed U.S. institutions, capturing most institutional and compliant transfer/settlement scenarios. PayPal’s PYUSD targets retail via merchant networks; Ripple’s RLUSD focuses on interbank large-value settlements.

The market is no longer dominated by a single player but is rapidly moving toward specialization.

04 Tether’s ambitions and boundaries

Having made so much money, what does Tether plan to do?

Buy mining farms. In Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, Tether has invested over $2 billion to build 15 energy and Bitcoin mining sites, aiming to become the world’s largest Bitcoin miner.

Invest in AI. Through channels like Northern Data Group, Tether has invested over $1 billion in AI computing infrastructure.

Buy robots. By the end of 2025, Tether will invest €70 million in Italy’s AI robot startup Generative Bionics; simultaneously, it’s considering up to $1.15 billion in Germany’s Neura Robotics, aiming to produce 5 million humanoid robots by 2030.

The logic behind this is straightforward: in an economy operated by AI intelligences and autonomous robots, their value exchange requires an instant, programmable digital currency. USDT is the most obvious candidate for this role.

Regulatory developments are also supporting this story. In July 2025, the U.S. signed the GENIUS Act into law, opening a legal pathway for regulated stablecoin issuance, explicitly excluding stablecoins from securities and commodities. The EU’s MiCA framework was fully implemented the same year, bringing stablecoins from the “gray area” into mainstream regulation.

Wall Street’s core circles are also entering the game. Tier-1 U.S. Treasury dealer Cantor Fitzgerald holds about 5% of Tether’s shares, and CEO Howard Lutnick has publicly endorsed Tether’s reserve transparency multiple times. This deep integration means Tether is no longer just a crypto project; it has quietly embedded itself into the traditional financial network.

05 Summary

From a stablecoin issuer to one of the top 20 U.S. Treasury holders worldwide, to an investor in robotic factories—every step of Tether’s expansion points in the same direction:

The power to define money is quietly shifting from sovereign printing presses to more efficient, frictionless digital networks.

This isn’t a revolution but a gradual infiltration.

SWIFT still runs, banks still open, the Fed still adjusts interest rates. But another system is growing rapidly in the gaps between them.

For everyone involved, perhaps it’s worth asking:
In the next decade, which system will your money operate within?