Tether Expands Bitcoin Reserves With Nearly 9,000 BTC Buy—What’s The Plan?

Tether, the developer of USDT, has added 8,888 Bitcoins to its holdings valued at around $735 million at the time of the transaction. This latest market move by the popular stablecoin issuer was reported by Arkham.

In a snapshot offered by Arkham on its official website, it revealed that the stablecoin company withdrew 8,888 Bitcoins from Bitfinex, a leading exchange and Tether’s sister company, on Monday. 

Tether’s latest transaction pushes its Bitcoin holdings to 92,647, valued at $7.7 billion at current market prices. With this latest boost to its crypto holdings, Tether remains one of the biggest Bitcoin holders in the industry.

Tether Slowly Builds Its Bitcoin Reserve

In the last few weeks, Bitcoin was the among the main agenda of US President Donald Trump for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR). But last Monday, Tether made its presence felt by adding more Bitcoins to its already huge crypto reserve.

Tether’s crypto reserve is one of the biggest in the business as it’s used to back up its stablecoin, the USDT. Currently, Tether controls over5 60% of the total stablecoins market, with a market cap of $144 billion, compared to a total of $234 billion valuation for the whole stablecoin industry.

Tether’s latest transaction puts it in the big league, making it the sixth biggest holder of Bitcoin. According to Bitcoin Treasuries, Tether is the second-largest private holder of the asset, below Block.one. But if we zoom out and consider other entities and publicly-traded companies, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), and the top spot Bitcoin ETFs issuers beat Tether’s holdings.

Commitment To Invest In Bitcoin

Tether’s latest Bitcoin acquisition reflects the company’s commitment to Bitcoin. Interestingly, the company pledged to use a part of its net profit to buy additional Bitcoins. The company committed last May 2023, and stated that it will use 14% of its net profits to buy additional Bitcoins.

Tether’s most recent Bitcoin purchase was 8,404, which was made last December, which pushed its holdings to 83,759.

Tether’s latest Bitcoin purchase coincided with the minting of fresh tokens. According to on-chain data, the stablecoin company minted $1 billion in tokens on Tron. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has confirmed the minting of a new USDT. 

According to Ardoino, the minting of new USDT was authorized, but he insisted that this batch is not yet included in the circulation. They added that the newly minted USDT is now part of their inventory and will be used for future issuance requests. Tether has already minted $8 billion tokens on Tron since the start of the year, and recorded $22 billion worth of USDT minted last year.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView