Cathie Wood’s ARK, Softbank Eye Tether Stakes In Massive Fundraising

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest and Masayoshi Son’s Softbank Group are in discussions to buy stakes in Tether as the world’s largest stablecoin eyes a fundraising that could value it at up to $500 billion.

That’s according to a Bloomberg report that cited sources familiar with the matter as saying the two tech investors are among investors in early talks for Tether’s plan to raise $15 billion to $20 billion.

Bloomberg reported the fundraising plan earlier in the week, saying it would a sell a stake of about 3% to investors.

If successful, the funding, handled by Cantor Fitzgerald, would put Tether’s valuation in the same ballpark as Sam Alton’s OpenAI and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Ark Invest has previously invested in rival stablecoin issuer Circle, which has a market cap of $73.7 billion.

The companies’ interest in buying stakes in Tether, which has a market cap of $174.3 billion, underscores a shift in investor confidence towards stablecoins after the US passed the GENIUS Act, which provides a regulatory framework for the sector in the US.

Both ARK and Softbank are well known early investors in promising tech and crypto firms. ARK holds stakes in firms from Coinbase to Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersioin Technologies, while Softbank has invested in companies from Cipher Mining to Blockdaemon and the defunct crypto exchange FTX.

Wood’s firm has also recently backed a $300 million Solana treasury initiative by Solmate

Citi Says Stablecoin Market To Hit $4 Trillion By 2030

Citi this week revised its forecast for the growth of the stablecoin market, saying it would soar as much as 13x by 2030 to reach a market capitalization of $4 trillion.

The bank cited faster-than-expected adoption in payments and a growing reliance on decentralized finance as key factors behind the surge, while increasing its bull-case forecast by $300 billion to $4 trillion by 2030.

“We argued that 2025 would be blockchain’s ChatGPT moment, with stablecoins igniting the shift,” Citi said. “Now that transformation is unfolding at a remarkable pace. Cryptocurrency company listings, record fundraising and breakthroughs in technology all suggest that institutional adoption is accelerating.”

In its base case, it see the market surging to $1.9 trillion by 2030, up from a forecast of $1.6 trillion previously.

Tether is also preparing to launch a US-based stablecoin called USAT, with former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines as CEO.

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