The latest BDO Italia certification report for Tether revealed that Bitcoin (BTC) represented about $1.5 billion of the stablecoin issuer’s reserves, or about 2% of its total assets, at the end of the first quarter. The accounting firm did not include Bitcoin as a line 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 featured in the report, revealing that Tether holds about $3.4 billion worth of assets, roughly 4% of total reserves.
In an accompanying announcement, Tether said it included information about its Bitcoin and precious metal holdings to offer greater transparency to holders of the USDT stablecoin:
“The CRR provides for the first time, additional categories with the aim of increasing transparency in Tether reserve information. Physical gold, Overnight Repo, corporate bonds and Bitcoin ownership have been reported separately.”
The announcement also claimed that Tether made $1.48 billion worth of profits over the course of the first quarter and increased the circulation of its coin by 20%. Due to this increase in circulation, Tether’s total reserves have reached an all-time high at approximately $81.8 billion.
Tether’s most recent growth may have been caused in part by the decline of its biggest competitor, Circle’s US Dollar Coin (USDC). USDC briefly lost its peg to the dollar in the secondary market in March on concerns over its exposure to Silicon Valley Bank. The coin quickly recovered its position, but its market capitalization has since declined. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has cited an alleged US regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrencies as another factor in its recent decline.
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