Tether CEO Says Company Holds About 150,000 Bitcoin

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company holds about 150,000 bitcoin, a figure that exceeds the holdings implied by its latest reserve attestation by roughly 50,000 coins. "We have give or take 150,000 bitcoin ourselves. It's not much, but it's honest work," Ardoino said during a keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano, Switzerland, according to Decrypt.

At bitcoin's price around the time of the reports, the stack is worth roughly $11.5 billion, Bitcoin Magazine reported. That would place Tether among the largest corporate holders of the asset, behind Strategy's 848,517 BTC as of the third quarter and ahead of most public miners and treasury companies.

The gap with the public paper trail is large. Tether International's third-quarter reserve report, published Oct. 30 with an attestation from BDO, lists $8.37 billion in bitcoin valued at $83,621.23 per coin as of Sept. 30. That implies about 100,060 BTC, up around 1,130 from roughly 98,930 at the end of June. Most of the quarter's $2.57 billion rise in the bitcoin line came from price movement rather than new purchases, the report shows.

Ardoino did not say where the additional coins are held, when they were acquired, or whether they belong to the stablecoin issuer or to Tether Investments, the arm that holds the group's venture and equity positions. His remark does not indicate a fresh purchase of 50,000 BTC. Tether has long said investments it makes from profits are kept apart from the reserves backing USDT, so coins held by Tether Investments would not appear in the attestation. Since May 2023 the company has said it puts up to 15% of net realized operating profits into bitcoin and holds the coins in its own custody rather than through third-party custodians, Decrypt reported.

The company's bitcoin exposure extends past its own wallets. Tether took full control of Twenty One Capital in May after buying out SoftBank's entire stake, a transaction announced May 20 that removed the last major outside ownership bloc from the Jack Mallers-cofounded firm. Tether also backs Adecoagro's mining in Brazil and runs mining and energy ventures in Latin America. Whether any of those positions sit inside the 150,000 figure is not clear.

The disclosure lands as Tether's balance sheet grows more dependent on bitcoin and gold. The Q3 report shows $191.45 billion in reserve assets against $183.50 billion in liabilities, an excess of $7.95 billion, up from $4.11 billion in June. Bitcoin at $8.37 billion and gold at about $19.1 billion together exceed that buffer several times over, so a sharp drop in either would eat into it. Treasury bills remain the bulk of reserves at about $132.4 billion.

Tether earned about $1.5 billion in the quarter and $4.5 billion in the first nine months of the year, with USDT issuance holding broadly steady near $184 billion across the first three quarters, according to the company's Oct. 30 release. U.S. Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements produced most of that income, the release said. In August, KPMG U.S. completed the first independent audit of Tether's reserves, ending years of reliance on attestations alone; the firm said it physically counted and inspected every gold bar held by the company. Ardoino said at the forum that USDT has more than 730 million users and is adding about 30 million wallets a quarter.

Bitcoin traded near $77,600 on Tuesday, which puts the stated 150,000-coin stack at about $11.6 billion and the attested holdings near $7.8 billion, below their Sept. 30 valuation, Bitcoin Magazine calculated. The company has not said whether it plans to publish a breakdown of the coins held outside the reserve.