Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has mocked JPMorgan after one of the bank’s co-presidents played down institutional appetite for stablecoins, replying that Tether sees little demand from the North Pole for imported ice.
Doug Petno made the remarks on Tuesday at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in New York. Prediction market Kalshi relayed the line, and Ardoino answered within hours.
JPMorgan Stablecoin Demand Doubts Came From the Top
Petno co-leads JPMorganChase and runs its Commercial and Investment Bank. He called institutional interest in blockchain and stablecoins nascent, pointing to interoperability gaps, regulation, and know-your-customer rules.
The bank could launch a stablecoin quickly, Petno said. However, he sees no real institutional pull for one outside crypto trading. That framing splits the market rather than dismissing it.
JPMorgan’s own posture complicates the picture. The bank runs a blockchain payments arm, Kinexys, and has kept building tokenized deposit rails rather than a public stablecoin. Meanwhile, Japan’s megabanks have entered the race for bank-issued tokens.
The bank’s research team has set a ceiling, too. J.P. Morgan Global Research expects the stablecoin market to reach $500 billion to $750 billion, far below the $2 trillion some forecasters project. Analysts separately warn that the shift could raise bank borrowing costs.
Tether Answers With a $183 Billion Book
Ardoino’s ice analogy makes one point. Tether already moves the volume, Petno says, institutions do not want. Tether’s token, USDT, carries a market value near $183 billion, and all stablecoins together total about $311 billion.
Tether has also spent 2026 courting the scrutiny institutions ask for. KPMG delivered the company’s first clean audit in August, although the reserve cushion behind USDT has since thinned.
Ardoino has kept his rebuttals short this year, including a flat denial of a Tether blockchain. Petno, for his part, left the door open should regulation shift.
Neither side needs the other to be wrong. Petno describes his own client book, while Ardoino describes his. The gap between them is the story.
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