Bitcoin’s Rebound Drove Most of Tether’s $3.8 Billion Reserve Recovery

Tether held $7.95 billion more in reserves than it owed USDT holders on Sept. 30, up about $3.85 billion from the end of June, the stablecoin issuer said in its third-quarter attestation on Friday.

The report, reviewed by accounting firm BDO, puts total assets at $191.45 billion against $183.5 billion in liabilities, nearly all of it tokens in circulation. Tether said USDT issuance has held near $184 billion so far this year.

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Tether didn’t explain the jump. The three reserve reports Tether has filed this year show the answer sits mostly in two lines: bitcoin and gold.

The bitcoin price used to value Tether’s holdings rose 42.6% over the quarter, to $83,621 from $58,642. At roughly 98,900 BTC, about the amount Tether held in June, that move alone adds about $2.47 billion, by Unchained’s calculation. A 3.7% rise in the gold price, to $4,157.41 an ounce, adds roughly $700 million. The gold line implies Tether held about 3.4 fewer tonnes than in June, though the report doesn’t say whether any metal was sold.

Bitcoin and gold were also behind the second-quarter drop. Tether’s excess reserves fell by half to $4.11 billion in the second quarter, when gold slid about 14% to $4,008 and bitcoin fell about 14% to $58,642. By our count, the gold price drop cost about $2.8 billion even though Tether added some 14 tonnes, and the bitcoin drop cost about $930 million.

At $7.95 billion, the buffer remains about $278 million below the $8.23 billion Tether reported for the end of March.

Tether said it earned $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the quarter and $4.5 billion over the first nine months, mostly from Treasury bills and reverse repos. That measure isn’t a line in the BDO report, which puts the nine-month financial result at $1.66 billion; the two numbers aren’t reconciled.

Tether put its direct and indirect Treasury bill holdings at $132.4 billion, which matches BDO’s $122.84 billion Treasury bill line plus $9.52 billion of overnight reverse repos, a category that roughly halved during the quarter.

The report also restates Tether’s equity at the end of 2025 to $6.81 billion, matching the KPMG-audited accounts the company said it received in August.

CEO Paolo Ardoino said in the release that the quarter’s profit and excess reserves give the company “a strong foundation for that work,” referring to keeping USDT reliable under market stress. BDO’s opinion covers balances on Sept. 30 only.

Related Listen: Tether Freezes Stolen Funds. Circle Doesn’t. Why?

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