Tether Ex-CIO Seeks to Sell 1.26% Stake in Secondary Market

Crypto News

Richard Heathcote, the former chief investment officer of Tether — issuer of USDT, the largest dollar-pegged stablecoin — is preparing to offload part of his 1.26% equity stake in the company. Heathcote has engaged investment bank PJT Partners to manage the secondary-market transfer, and the sale has received Tether's formal approval. He joined the firm in January 2023 and shifted to a non-executive adviser role in March 2026 for personal reasons. Because Tether paused a funding round that had targeted a valuation near $500 billion, market participants are watching this private transaction closely as a proxy for what institutional buyers actually believe the issuer is worth today, ahead of any audited figure.

Separately in Japan, financial-solutions firm Trade Works has built a blockchain-based platform to track and manage the flow of political funds, aiming to make the links between money and political support transparent. The system applies toku-chain — a Web3 rewards-distribution platform originally built on non-fungible tokens — to managing community dues and donations in the political sphere. Several lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are reportedly evaluating the tool. The initiative lands against the backdrop of the LDP faction fundraising-party scandal, which exposed off-the-books money and intensified calls to reform how political financing is recorded, audited, and made tamper-resistant on a public ledger.

The paused fundraise is central to Tether's current standing. Earlier in 2026, the company shelved a capital raise that anticipated a valuation as high as $500 billion, after cross-border banks and prospective institutional investors pressed for far greater financial disclosure. In response, Tether has retained one of the Big Four accounting firms to conduct the first complete financial audit in its history. Until that audit is published, the valuation implied by Heathcote's stake sale becomes an important signal of institutional confidence. Our reading is that a single insider transaction cannot set a firm's price, yet in the absence of audited statements it inevitably carries outsized weight for outside observers.

Tether's profitability underpins that lofty valuation. The company issues USDT, a dollar-pegged token, and parks the backing reserves largely in US Treasury bills. In a sustained high-rate environment, that structure has generated substantial interest income: Tether reported profit exceeding $10 billion last year, and USDT circulation has expanded to roughly $184 billion. The scale of those earnings has pushed the estimated net worth of chairman Giancarlo Devasini to around $64 billion. Unlike an algorithmic stablecoin design, USDT's peg rests on reserve assets rather than code, which is precisely why the pending audit — verifying those reserves — matters so much to institutional allocators.

Trade Works is broadening its Web3 footprint beyond the political-funds tool. Through a group subsidiary, the company already supports cryptocurrency within an online investment-advisory service, and it engages across decentralized finance, decentralized-exchange infrastructure, and related on-chain sectors. It has also been confirmed as a platinum sponsor of WebX2026, a major industry event scheduled for the 13th and 14th of this month. Company president Masakatsu Saito framed on-chain finance as a broader movement to redesign financial trust, accountability, and auditability — arguing that as artificial-intelligence use spreads, tamper-proof records of who executed what, when, and with which authority become increasingly important.

Secondary-market equity sales are common among large private unicorns, yet Tether has historically approached them cautiously. In late 2025, the company intervened to block certain existing shareholders from selling on the secondary market, citing concern that uncoordinated external quotes could distort its primary-market institutional financing and valuation pricing. Heathcote's transaction is notably different: it carries the company's explicit blessing. During his tenure he helped direct reserve income into diversified ventures spanning robotics and even professional football. His approved, partial exit therefore reads less as a red flag and more as routine liquidity management by a departing executive rotating personal assets rather than a signal of internal doubt.

Taken together, these developments trace a single arc: the maturation of on-chain finance toward institutional-grade accountability — whether that means Tether submitting to its first full audit or a Japanese firm rebuilding political-funds tracking on tamper-proof rails. Our aggregate market data frames the moment cautiously: the Fear & Greed Index sits at 27 (Fear), Bitcoin dominance holds at 69.5%, and total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.85 trillion, keeping the broader altcoin complex under pressure well below its all-time high. In our reading, transparency — audited reserves, verifiable fund flows — is fast becoming the currency that determines which crypto institutions command premium valuations.