The stablecoin war between Tether, the company behind USDT, which is by far the largest in market capitalization, and Ripple, which launched XRP, seems to be slowly starting.

“Tether is the next target”

What Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said in a podcast he attended received a reaction from the Tether wing. Garlinghouse said, “The US Government is going after Tether. That is clear to me. I view Tether as a very important part of the ecosystem and I don’t know how to predict the impact it would have on the rest of the ecosystem.”

“An uniformed CEO and under SEC investigation…”

Paolo Ardoino, the most recognizable name in Tether and recently promoted from CTO to CEO, reacted to Garlinghouse’s comments and said:

“An uniformed CEO, leading a company being investigated by the SEC, launching a competitive stablecoin (cui prodest), is being reported spreading fear about USDt. USDt is the most used stablecoin in the world, with hundreds of millions of users across primarily emerging markets and developing countries. Entire communities across these regions are unbanked, left behind by the traditional banking system because they are too poor to be of interest, and are using USDt daily as their checking and saving account.”

Ardoino later said that Tether collaborates with the governments of many countries, from the US to Israel, and also cooperates with institutions by freezing accounts on issues ranging from terrorism financing to money laundering.

It was also included in the SEC filing

As it will be remembered, in a Ripple file submitted to the court by the SEC recently, the stablecoin that the company wanted to issue was mentioned and the firm’s “continued sale of unregistered securities” was pointed out.

The name of Ripple’s stablecoin is not yet known. The coin is expected to be announced in June.