Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company is not building its own blockchain and has no plans to launch one, rejecting a CoinMarketCap analysis that placed the USDT issuer alongside Stripe and Circle in a race to control stablecoin payment rails. The report pointed to Tether's backing of Plasma and Stable, but Ardoino's denial underscored the difference between funding networks and operating one. Tether is keeping USDT on third-party chains such as Tron and Ethereum, a strategy that preserves the token's roughly $183 billion multichain liquidity even as CoinMarketCap estimated users pay about $2.9 billion a year in fees to those networks. The stance comes as Circle gains ground with USDC in some markets, MiCA pressures USDT in Europe, and Tether emphasizes trust after securing its first clean KPMG audit this month.