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BDO Italia’s latest Tether attestation report showed that Bitcoin (BTC) held roughly $1.5 billion in the stablecoin issuer’s reserves, or roughly 2% of the total, at the end of the first quarter. The accounting firm did not list Bitcoin as an item in previous reports.
Without much fanfare, Tether has started reinvesting some of their profits/excess reserves into Bitcoin. How much have they acquired in Q1, you ask? Just around 52,670. pic.twitter.com/NI3N0oICOz
— girevik (@girevik_) May 10, 2023
Precious metals also received a separate line item in the report, showing that Tether holds about $3.4 billion worth of assets, or roughly 4% of total reserves.
In the accompanying announcement, Tether said it had included information about its Bitcoin and precious metals holdings to provide increased transparency for holders of the USDT stablecoin:
“CRR is providing additional categories for the first time in an effort to increase transparency in reporting Tether holdings. Separately, physical gold, overnight repos, corporate bonds, and Bitcoin ownership were reported.
The announcement also stated that Tether made a profit of $1.48 billion during the first quarter and increased the circulation of its coin by 20%. Due to this increase in circulation, Tether’s total reserves reached their highest level ever, at roughly $81.8 billion.
Tether’s latest rise may have been partly driven by the fall of its biggest competitor, the U.S. dollar coin Circle (USDC). USDC briefly lowered its peg in the secondary market in March due to concerns about its exposure to a failed Silicon Valley bank. The coin quickly regained its peg, but its market cap has since declined. Circle CEO Jeremy Aller cited alleged U.S. regulatory regulation of the cryptocurrency as another factor in its recent decline.
