The short version
- Tether Bitcoin holdings are “give or take 150,000 bitcoin,” CEO Paolo Ardoino said in Lugano, about $11.5 billion and 50,000 more than the 100,060 BTC in the Q3 report.
- The extra coins likely sit outside the USDT reserves: Twenty One Capital, which Tether controls, held 43,514 BTC in June, but Ardoino hasn’t said where they are.
- Next: a breakdown from Tether or Twenty One’s next filing. We’ll post it on Base Camp on X as soon as one shows up.
The Tether Bitcoin holdings figure just grew by 50,000 coins, at least out loud. CEO Paolo Ardoino told a crowd in Lugano that the company holds “give or take 150,000 bitcoin,” worth about $11.5 billion at the time of writing. Tether’s own Q3 report counts 100,060 BTC.
That gap is about $3.8 billion of Bitcoin nobody has shown on paper. So where are the other 50,000 coins, and are they new?
Our read on the Q3 report, from Sunday:
Tether's Q3 reserve buffer nearly doubled to $7.95B, but there's a catch
• $1.5B in Q3 operating profit
• BTC and gold gains did much of the lifting
• Around $1.8B of the buffer had already vanished on paper at article-time prices
basecamp.markets/tether-q3-repo…
What Did Ardoino Say About Tether Bitcoin Holdings?
One line, and no detail. “We have give or take 150,000 bitcoin ourselves. It’s not much, but it’s honest work,” Ardoino said in his Plan ₿ Forum keynote, which Tether posted on YouTube on October 29. The remark only got picked up on Tuesday.
The timing matters. The video went up a day before Tether published its BDO attestation, which values the Tether Bitcoin reserves backing USDT at $8.37 billion at $83,621 a coin on September 30. That works out to 100,060 BTC, only about 1,130 more than in June. Ardoino didn’t say where the rest sits, who owns it or when it was bought.
So this isn’t a 50,000 BTC buy, and no Tether Bitcoin purchase of that size has been announced. It’s a different count, and probably a wider one.
Sponsored · Affiliate link
Save 20% on fees trading on WEEX
Base Camp may earn a commission if you sign up. It never affects what we write.
Where Could the Other 50,000 BTC Be?
Most likely outside the reserves. Tether keeps the investments it makes from profits in a separate company, Tether Investments, and has said for years that those stay apart from the reserves backing USDT. Coins held there would never show up in the attestation.
One candidate fits the size. Tether is the controlling shareholder of Twenty One Capital (XXI) and bought out SoftBank’s stake in May. Twenty One held 43,514 BTC on June 30, according to its latest quarterly filing. Add that to the reserves and you get about 143,574 BTC, which is close to “give or take 150,000.” The rest could come from Tether’s mining ventures. Ardoino hasn’t confirmed either.
The chain doesn’t show new coins either. The best-known Tether Bitcoin wallet, the address its reserve coins have long been tracked to, holds 96,932 BTC on mempool.space, unchanged since July apart from dust and one transfer to itself on October 22.
SIDE TRAIL: Tether Q3 Report: $1.5B Profit, Reserve Buffer Nearly Doubles to $7.95B
What Does It Mean for Bitcoin?
Not much for the price today. Bitcoin trades at about $76,630 at the time of writing, below Tether’s September 30 mark of $83,621 and just above Tuesday’s low of $75,736. A count of coins Tether already had doesn’t add a buyer.
It does change the leaderboard. If the Tether Bitcoin holdings really are 150,000 BTC, Tether holds more Bitcoin for itself than any other company except Strategy, which reported 849,327 BTC on Monday. Unlike Strategy, Tether hasn’t published a number anyone can check for the coins outside the reserves.
TRAIL MAP: What Is Proof of Reserves?
What would settle it is a breakdown of the Tether BTC holdings: which company owns the extra coins, and where they sit. Tether’s Q4 report, due early next year, only covers the reserves, so the answer has to come from Ardoino or a filing at Twenty One.
TheCryptoMonk has been trading since 2017 and reads the market from the top down. The focus is macro and the high timeframes: where stocks, rates and liquidity are heading, and what the weekly and monthly charts say about Bitcoin. Short-term noise matters less than the bigger trend.
More from TheCryptoMonk
