Early Uber investor Jason Calacanis has strongly urged Tether to undertake significant reforms aimed at fully stabilizing and "Americanizing" its operations. Calacanis believes that such measures are crucial for restoring the company's credibility and substantially reducing systemic risk within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. His primary recommendations include that Tether should divest all of its Bitcoin holdings and exclusively hold 100% U.S. Treasuries as reserves. This strategic shift, he argues, would replace its current, relatively risky reserve assets with fully safe, highly liquid, and transparent government securities, thereby enhancing the stablecoin's reliability.

Further emphasizing the need for transparency, Calacanis has advocated for Tether to undergo at least two independent audits conducted by reputable American firms. These audits would serve to publicly demonstrate the company's financial health and operational integrity. The urgency of these recommendations is underscored by S&P Global's recent downgrade of USDT's dollar-peg stability to "weak." This downgrade was primarily attributed to several factors: Tether's Bitcoin holdings exceeding its safety buffer, the absence of comprehensive full audits, and the use of non-transparent custodians and counterparties. On-chain tracking data indicates that Tether's Bitcoin reserve address currently holds approximately 87,296 BTC, a position valued at roughly $9.0 billion. It is important to note that BTC constitutes only a portion of Tether's full reserve mix, which also encompasses US Treasuries, cash, and various other investments.

Calacanis's concerns about Tether are not new; he has been a longtime skeptic. As far back as 2021, he famously described Tether as potentially crypto’s "black swan." His apprehension stemmed from Tether being the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, yet simultaneously displaying a worrying lack of transparency and never having undergone a comprehensive audit. Earlier this year, Calacanis reiterated his warnings about the systemic risks posed by both Tether and MicroStrategy, highlighting their considerable exposure to cryptocurrency. Currently, Tether's flagship USDT token has a reported market capitalization of $185 million.