Gradwell becomes head of economics at Tether, having spent over six years at Chainalysis.
His goal at Tether is to help communicate how USDT is supporting dollar hegemony.

Tether has hired the chief economist from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, Philip Gradwell, to take up a similar position at the stablecoin giant, where he will be responsible for quantifying the Tether economy to regulators, the company said on Monday.

Gradwell spent over six years as chief economist at Chainanalysis, and will take up the role of head of economics at Tether.

Tether, which mimics the U.S. dollar with blockchain-based token USDT, is far and away the largest stablecoin in circulation, with over $112 billion market capitalization.

“My goal at Tether is to shift this conversation towards understanding how digital assets are used in the real economy, and how USDT is supporting dollar hegemony,” Gradwell said in a statement.

Tether Management Economics Stablecoins

Ian Allison

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.