The family affairs shaping Tether’s $180B empire

Tether is one of the most important financial corporations to ever exist.

Its primary product, USDT, has reached a market capitalization of over $180 billion, it has investments in over 120 other firms, and its family of subsidiaries and investments reach into nearly every corner of the crypto industry.

It’s done all this while appearing to maintain a much leaner team than many of its competitors, even as it had to grapple with various outside legal and regulatory pressures.

Many have speculated about what the secret to this success might be, but one possible reason might be the family ties enjoyed by many of its executives and leaders.

Lorenzo Romagnoli and Giancarlo Devasini

USDT0, which is operated by Everdawn Labs Limited, is an asset that claims to “standardise how Tether assets expand to new blockchains.”

Press releases have highlighted that USDT0 and Everdawn Labs were co-founded by a “Lorenzo R,” and Alex Lim of LayerZero has posted pictures with X user “Zerolore,” whose bio identifies him as the co-founder of USDT0.

This information, in tandem with a little detective work around the Queen Mary Blockchain Society, allows us to identify “Zerolore” as Lorenzo Romagnoli.

We can further support this identification by reviewing the corporate directors for Everdawn Labs Limited in the British Virgin Islands, which includes:

• Keno Wilhelm Budde
• Kevin Muller
• Lorenzo Romagnoli

The Queen Mary Blockchain Society also helps us identify an X account with the username “Romagnoli_99” and the name “Lorenzo Romagnoli” that interacted with the Queen Mary Blockchain Society.

This account, which is no longer active, includes retweets bragging about the market capitalization of USDT and frequently promotion of Popsicle Finance and the ICE token.

It also often retweets posts from Daniele Sestagali who would eventually allow people who embraced the defunct Popsicle Finance project to swap their tokens into a new project branded around the WAGMI token.

Read more: Criminals seem to have nine lives when it comes to crypto

Sestagali is perhaps best known for his association with the financial criminal Omar Dhanani and their Magic Internet Money and Abracadabra projects.

Returning to Lorenzo and USDT0, Everdawn Labs’ address is listed on its website as Trinity Chambers, P.O. Box 4301, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

This is the exact same post office box that Giancarlo Devasini, Tether’s chairman and Bitfinex’s chief financial officer, has listed as his mailing address in SEC filings.

Further contributing to the overlap between these firms is the fact that Everdawn Labs relies on SHRM TRUSTEES (BVI) LIMITED as its registered agent, the same registered agent that Tether has relied on.

Adding to the intimacy, the Facebook page linked by the Queen Mary Blockchain Society additionally reveals that Lorenzo has a father named Marco Romagnoli.

This is an important detail because the Italian newspaper La Stampa was able to interview a Marco Romagnoli, whom it identified as Giancarlo’s brother-in-law.

Taken as a whole, these connections suggest that there might be a more familial relationship between Tether and USDT0 than has previously been disclosed, with a source familiar with the situation describing Lorenzo as Devasini’s nephew.

Protos reached out to both Tether and Everdawn Labs to try to confirm the family relationship, but neither firm responded before publication.

Giancarlo Devasini and Valentina Picozzi

Lorenzo isn’t the only member of Devasini’s family who’s collaborated with Tether.

Valentina Picozzi, the artist behind the Satoshigallery, has worked with Tether, including creating the Satoshi statue that was unveiled at Plan B in Lugano.

Plan B, operated by AltKey SA, is run by Davide Rovelli, who leads Tether and Bitfinex’s Special Project Services.

The statue of Satoshi, which Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino claimed “stands as a testament to the revolutionary impact of Bitcoin and the idea of decentralization,” has now become a series.

The most recent copy was deployed by Tether-funded Twenty One Capital at the New York Stock Exchange.

Picozzi is also the author of To the Moon, a children’s book meant to introduce children to Bitcoin that begins, “Many years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, a brilliant scientist and inventor, lived on planet Genesis with his alpaca Alfie.”

We don’t want to spoil the entire story, but be comforted to know that Alfie the Alpaca convinces Nakamoto to leave Genesis so that they can “explore Crypto Space!”

Read more: Tether Investments: What a $100B stablecoin empire does with its profits

Picozzi’s Satoshigallery has used Tether in some of its artwork, even tagging Ardoino in posts about it.

Furthermore, in an interview conducted by Ariana Grava that was posted on Picozzi’s Instagram, it’s claimed that Picozzi created both the Bitfinex and the Tether logos.

Picozzi is described by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as Devasini’s wife.

Interestingly, Financial Times Alphaville described Picozzi as Devasini’s “long-term girlfriend,” though it also noted that she described in an interview that her “husband became interested in Bitcoin” around 2012, when Devasini invested in Bitfinex.

Zeke Faux, in his book Number Go Up, settled on describing her as Devasini’s “much-younger partner.”

Regardless of whether or not they’ve legally entangled themselves, it seems broadly agreed that these two are romantically entangled.

What we can say more definitively is that Devasini and Picozzi purchased a house together in San Salvador.

Protos reached out to Tether for clarification on the relationship between Devasini and Picozzi, but it didn’t respond before publication.

Paolo Ardoino and Claudia Lagorio

Ardoino is an extraordinarily busy executive. He’s Tether CEO, chief technology officer for Bitfinex, and chief strategy officer for Holepunch.

Claudia Lagorio is also quite busy, serving as the chief operating officer for both Bitfinex and Tether.

Lagorio is also a director for several other firms, including UBQ UK Ecosystem Services LTD. and UBQ SA.

Read more: Tether is ready to move to El Salvador

Lagorio and Ardoino are another couple who we can say are definitely intimate enough to be roommates.

The two of them have purchased real estate together in San Salvador and have long been rumored to be married.

Protos reached out to Tether for clarification on their relationship, but it didn’t respond before publication.

Christopher and William Harborne

Christopher Harborne, who sometimes who uses his Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit, is a pilot, aviation fuel trader, a UK defence contractor, and shareholder in Digfinex, the historical parent company to both Bitfinex and Tether.

William Harborne leads a project called rhino.fi, previously known as DeversiFi and before that EthFinex.

Read more: Tether forms ‘alliance’ with former sister firm, rhino.fi fka Ethfinex

EthFinex became DeversiFi as part of a so-called “management buyout” that transferred some of its volume back into sister firm Bitfinex while the remaining interest was spun out as DeversiFi.

William is Christopher’s son, but before you assume that Christopher had any role in getting his son a position related to his equity investments, it’s worth noting that Christopher claimed in his lawsuit against the WSJ that he’s “not now and never has been in any management or executive role at Bitfinex or Tether; he is merely a minority shareholder.”

Echoes of Ellison and Bankman-Fried

When FTX and Alameda Research collapsed, one of the scandalous details that attracted the public’s attention was the romantic relationship between Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison.

Some have speculated that part of the reason that Ellison struggled to refuse Bankman-Fried’s criminal requests is because of the complicated relationship between the pair.

Similarly, while Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has been forbidden from serving as the company’s leader, the mother of their children, Yi He, has been able to step into the breach.

This raises fascinating questions about the extent of influence Zhao still has, particularly as he continues to announce new products on X.

Tether lords over a far larger financial conglomerate than FTX and Alameda Research ever have, so understanding the family connections is important to understanding Tether.

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