Paolo Ardoino is the CEO at Tether, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, and the CTO at Bitfinex, a digital asset trading platform. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Holepunch and a former Partner of Fincluster. ^[1][2][3]

Education

Paolo attended Liceo Scientifico for a Bachelor of Science from 1998-2003. He then attended the Università degli Studi di Genova and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. ^[1]

Career

Paolo Ardoino started his career in 2003 as a freelance consultant in Security, Software and Web Development, and Distributed Systems Architecture. In 2007, he co-founded his first company Involutive which was founded as a collaboration with 2 friends at the Department of Computer Science in Genoa. At Involutive, Paolo designed and developed the first releases of the online MMORPG called WarWide, a 'Risk!'-like war game featuring real-time multiplayer interactions, evolution, and strategies. ^[4]

In 2008, Paolo served as a Researcher/Developer for Selex Communications in a Military project at the Università degli Studi di Genova. In September 2009, he moved on to become a Researcher at DISI (Department of Computer Science) for ACIS, where he focused on developing a Java framework and simulator for packet routing on vehicular networks using Open Street Map as maps (graphs) source. ^[4]

In 2010, Paolo joined Frame Asset Management^[5] as a Senior full-stack developer. Here, he was the lead developer tasked with building an accounting and trade management/reconciliation system. ^[4]

Fincluster

Paolo Ardoino was appointed as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Fincluster in 2012. Fincluster raised two rounds of financing and developed a web platform that offered customization services to various clients. Additionally, the platform provided a comprehensive financial application for Independent Advisors, Fund Managers, and Institutions. Fincluster extended its services to small and medium-sized businesses in London, Milan, and Lugano. ^[4]

Paolo's role as CTO of Fincluster focused on managing the dev team, creating the backend core and the financial performance calculation libraries, and monitoring the security and scalability of the infrastructure. ^[4]

Holepunch

Holepunch^[6] is a platform for creating apps that don’t use any servers and Paolo Ardoino joined the company in 2020 as a Chief Strategy Officer (CSO). Holepunch provides a collection of small Javascript modules that can be combined to create an unlimited variety of P2P apps, from VPNs to communications tools, etc. ^[4]

As a part-time CSO, Paolo is responsible for strategic planning, business development, risk management, and performance monitoring for the organization. ^[4]

Bitfinex

Paolo joined Bitfinex in October 2014 as a Senior Software Developer. Bitfinex is a digital asset trading platform offering services for cryptocurrency traders and liquidity providers. During his period as a software developer, his primary duties were to consult, plan, and re-design the backend with a focus on scalability, atomicity, and high availability. Additionally, he led the evaluation and integration with the Alphapoint trading engine. ^[4][7]

"I came in to Bitfinex in 2015, so there was two issues with the mentioned engine making time. No doubt quality of the changes was still a demand on my opinion. I had experience in parallel computing, distributed networks and scalability. Basically I met John Carload, a senior to CFO. We liked each other, of course. We're Italians, so it's kind of easy." - Paolo Ardoino on his entry into Bitfinex^[9]

In March 2015, he was appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Bitfinex. As CTO, he oversees the development of the Bitfinex platform, ensuring its resilience in various market conditions to meet user needs. Paolo leads the technology development team, assesses cutting-edge technologies, and designs the backend infrastructure for scalability, high availability, fault tolerance, and high performance. Additionally, he serves as the Lead Backend Developer, responsible for coding the Bitfinex matching engine. ^[4][8]

Tether

In December 2017, Paolo Ardoino joined Tether as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Tether^[3] is the company that invented the concept of stablecoins, back in 2014. As CTO at Tether, Paolo led the development and security teams for the company behind the stablecoin, USDt. With the stablecoin products being mainly blockchain and cryptography-based, a key part of his role was to ensure the quality, security, stability, and robustness of the different integrations and solutions, available across different blockchains. ^[4]

Other Tether-issued stablecoins include Tether gold (XAUt) - pegged to gold’s price, Tether euro (EURT) - pegged to the common currency of the European Union, Tether peso (MXNT) - pegged to the Mexican peso, and Tether yuan (CNHT) - pegged to the offshore Chinese yuan. ^[3]

"My main tasks during the day are coding, of course, because when I agreed to become CTO of companies, the way I do things in both companies is that I need to set up my daily schedule and my weekly schedule. That leaves enough time for me to keep coding" - Paolo Ardoino on how he balances his work schedule as a CTO. ^[10]

On the relationship between Bitfinex and Tether, Paolo says:

"The two companies are separate companies but they share some key personnels. I'm an example as the CTO on both companies. They have distinct teams that work on the marketing side, we have the blockchain integration team that is focusing just on launching our coin on different blockchains and so on.

There is some overlapping but they are not the same company"^[10]

On October 13, 2023, Paolo Arduino was promoted to the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Tether. From December 2023, Ardoino took over the role, succeeding Jean-Louis van der Velde (JL), who will transition to an advisory role for Tether while retaining his position as CEO for Bitfinex. Ardoino continues in his roles as Chief Technology Officer for Bitfinex and Chief Strategy Officer for Holepunch. ^[11][12]

"It's truly an honor to be entrusted with the role of CEO at Tether.

I'm excited to lead our team as we continue to innovate and provide stability in the cryptocurrency and global space. Together with our community, we can build a future that lifts the barriers to our freedoms. We remain committed to transparency, security, and to being an unstoppable force in the seamless integration of digital assets into the global financial ecosystem and beyond." - said Paolo Ardoino on his appointment. ^[11]

On how he plans to balance his work and life, Ardoino responds:

“I don't plan to ever stop doing what I do today. Throughout my life, I have been in love with technology and science. I have seen what I can build alone and what wonderful projects I can deliver with a team. I wake up happy, even through challenging times. I feel blessed for the opportunity that I have. It allows me to plan and build so many of the ideas that I keep dreaming about. There is still so much to do,”^[13]