Paolo Ardoino, chief executive of the stablecoin issuer Tether, is ranked No. 53 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with Jean-Louis van der Velde, with a net worth of $38 billion. He has led Tether since December 2023.
Paolo Ardoino was born on October 22, 1984, in Cisano sul Neva, in the Italian province of Savona. He began coding at eight and earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Genoa.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 53 (tied with Jean-Louis van der Velde), with $38 billion
- Later estimate: Wikipedia says Forbes put his wealth at $38 billion as of July 2026, ranking him 55th
Career
- Research: he worked as a researcher at the University of Genoa on cybersecurity and cryptography projects, and left in 2011
- 2011–2013: he developed trading algorithms at a hedge fund, then moved to London and founded Fincluster, a startup building cloud-based services for fund managers
- 2014: he joined Bitfinex as a software engineer and became its chief technology officer in 2016
- 2017–2023: he was chief technology officer of Tether
- December 2023: he became Tether’s CEO; he remains Bitfinex’s CTO
Holepunch and Lugano
In 2022 Ardoino founded Holepunch, an open-source platform for building peer-to-peer products, with the computer scientist Mathias Buus. That year he also worked with Lugano’s mayor to let Swiss municipal payments be made in Tether and other cryptocurrencies.
Tether Under His Leadership
Under Ardoino, Tether’s USDT has become the largest US dollar-backed stablecoin by market capitalisation, according to Wikipedia. The company’s other co-owners include Giancarlo Devasini.
Why It Matters
USDT is a core part of crypto trading, and Ardoino’s fortune is tied to Tether’s profits.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: Lugano in Switzerland, the city that partnered with Tether in 2022 (file photo, 2020; Paolo Ardoino is not pictured). Photo: Mchernyavska / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
