What Tether Means When It Says It’s ‘Regulated’ Tether, regulated or not? regulated stablecoins and unregulated stablecoins. But what is the difference? Tether, the largest of the stablecoins, is often described as unregulated. But Tether executives and supporters disagree with this claim. Who is right? J.P. Koning, a CoinDesk columnist, worked as an equity researcher at a Canadian brokerage firm and a financial writer at a large Canadian bank. He runs the popular Moneyness blog. Tether is the most popular medium of exchange in the crypto economy. With almost $25 billion worth of U.S. dollar tether stablecoins in existence, it has become one of the world’s largest non-bank issuers of dollars. For context, there are around $32.5 billion worth of PayPal balances outstanding. It took PayPal 20+ years to get to this level. Tether did it in just six!