How Giancarlo built the fortune
Giancarlo Devasini's wealth comes from Tether, the company behind USDT, a cryptocurrency token designed to hold a steady value of one US dollar. Tether launched in 2014 and was soon run by the same executives and shareholders as Bitfinex, a Hong Kong based trading platform that Devasini had joined in its early years and where he served as chief financial officer. Stablecoins let traders move money between exchanges and hold dollar value without using banks, and USDT became the most widely used token of its kind.
The business model turned out to be very profitable. Each token in circulation is meant to be backed by reserves, and Tether invests much of those reserves in short term US Treasury bills. When interest rates rose sharply from 2022, the interest earned on a growing pile of reserves turned Tether into one of the most profitable companies in finance relative to its tiny staff. Devasini is reported to be one of its largest individual shareholders, which links his fortune directly to the amount of USDT in circulation.
The path was not smooth. In 2016 Bitfinex lost a large quantity of bitcoin in a hack. In 2019 the New York Attorney General accused the companies of hiding losses linked to a payment processor called Crypto Capital, and in 2021 Bitfinex and Tether settled that case with a payment and reporting commitments, without admitting wrongdoing. The same year the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined Tether over past statements about its reserves.
Companies and holdings
Devasini's main interests are Tether and Bitfinex, which share ownership and leadership. In recent years Tether has used its profits to invest well beyond crypto, building a broad portfolio that includes:
- A large stake in the video platform Rumble, agreed in 2024.
- Majority control of Adecoagro, a South American agricultural company.
- A shareholding in the Italian football club Juventus.
- Investments in data centres, artificial intelligence, brain computer interface research and bitcoin mining.
Tether also holds substantial amounts of bitcoin and gold in its reserves. In 2025 the company moved its headquarters to El Salvador after obtaining a licence there, and it announced a separate dollar token aimed at the regulated US market.
Bitfinex remains a separate trading business with its own customers and products, including margin trading and lending between users. Over time it has also become a large holder of bitcoin recovered from the 2016 hack, after US authorities seized coins linked to the theft and began returning them through court proceedings. For Devasini, the combination of an exchange and a stablecoin issuer has meant exposure both to trading volumes and to the interest earned on reserves, two income streams that tend to move in different directions during market cycles.
Early life and career
Devasini was born in Turin in 1964 and studied medicine at the University of Milan. After graduating he worked only briefly as a doctor, reportedly in plastic surgery, before turning to business. In the 1990s he ran companies in Italy that traded computer hardware and electronic components, gaining experience in importing goods and managing thin margins in a competitive market.
He became interested in bitcoin in the early 2010s and invested in Bitfinex, which had been founded in 2012. Within a few years he was the exchange's chief financial officer, and his role expanded when Tether came under the same management. He has been described by colleagues as the main decision maker on financial matters at both companies, even though he rarely appears in public and leaves most media work to other executives, among them Tether's chief executive Paolo Ardoino.
Philanthropy and public life
Devasini is one of the least visible figures among very wealthy business owners. He gives few interviews, does not maintain an active public profile, and has made no widely documented personal philanthropic commitments. Most public statements about Tether's strategy come from the company itself or from Ardoino.
Tether has presented several of its investments, such as support for education programmes in El Salvador and the Plan B partnership with the Swiss city of Lugano to promote bitcoin payments, as contributions to the communities where it operates. Critics continue to question the transparency of stablecoin reserves, and regulators in several countries are writing new rules for the sector, which makes Devasini's business closely tied to policy decisions in the United States and Europe.