Tether Holds More Gold than Bitcoin as Q1 Profit Swells to $1.48B

Tether, the largest issuer of stablecoins, closed the first quarter of 2023 with a net profit of $1.48 billion, which doubled from the $700 million it had generated in the previous quarter. The company confirmed that its token circulation also jumped 20 percent.

Tether Reveals Bitcoin and Gold Holdings

According to the consolidated reserve report, signed by accounting firm BDO Italia, Tether’s total assets at the end of March stood at $81.8 billion, the majority of which are in US Treasury Bills.

Additionally, the stablecoin issuer holds $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and $3.4 billion in gold on its balance sheet, 2 percent and 4 percent of its total reserve, respectively. It is the first time Tether has revealed its Bitcoin and gold holdings.

“We continue to monitor the risk-adjusted return on all assets within our portfolio on an ongoing basis and expect to make further changes as the overall economic environment changes and the market cycle progresses as a part of our normal, ongoing risk management processes,” said Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether.

Tether discloses they’re trading bitcoin. Imagine a stablecoin that’s backed by highly volatile tokens which are manipulated by… tether.Tether can inflate the price of bitcoin to cover up any shortfalls. pic.twitter.com/RX6EPpiEyP

The Largest Stablecoin Issuer

Tether is known for its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDT, which has more than $82.6 billion in market capitalization, according to Coinmarketcap. Moreover, the company issues cryptocurrencies pegged to other currencies and gold, but their market share is only a fraction of USDT.

On top of that, the company is continuously increasing its USDT circulation. In the three-month period from January and March, Tether held about $2.44 billion in excess reserves.

“Looking ahead to Q2, we have an extremely positive outlook and remain committed to transparency, which is why we have introduced new categories in the reserves’ breakdown in our quarterly report to provide even greater transparency to our users,” Ardoino added.

With the consolidated reports, Tether is now ensuring transparency in its operations. However, the company faced criticism earlier with allegations of not maintaining appropriate reserves. In 2021, Tether and its affiliate crypto exchange, Bitfinex, settled allegations of misleading statements brought by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, paying $42.5 million.

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