DUBAI (Reuters) - Stablecoin Tether's recent growth is being driven by its use as an alternative to the U.S. dollar in emerging markets, rather than by demand for cryptocurrency trading, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told Reuters on Friday.

Tether issues a stablecoin, also called Tether or USDT, which is designed to maintain a constant value of $1 and is widely used in crypto-to-crypto trading. It has grown rapidly in recent years, hitting more than $100 billion worth of Tether tokens in circulation in March. "In the last few years we have seen the usage of USDTgoing from pure cryptocurrency trading to being basically the most used digital dollar in the world", Ardoino said on the sidelines of the Token2049 crypto conference in Dubai, where industry enthusiasts gathered despite heavy rains this week disrupting life in the desert city.