Stablecoin giant Tether quietly bought over $360 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) at the start of the year, according to on-chain data.
The purchase brings the company’s total Bitcoin holdings up to 66,400 BTC worth $2.7 billion.
According to Bitcoin market intelligence provider CryptoQuant, a blockchain address previously identified as Tether’s saw its balance rise from 57,500 BTC to 66,400 BTC on January 4.
That’s the largest single-day rise for the address since the end of March 2023. In May, Tether formally revealed that 2% of its reserves were held in Bitcoin, and announced plans to allocate 15% of its operating profits into BTC.
“Tether is now the 11th largest Bitcoin holder in the world,” wrote a CryptoQuant analyst regarding the firm’s newly discovered wallet balance in August.
At the time, a digital asset analyst at 21Shares claimed to have identified Tether’s wallet by comparing its suspected address’s holdings to the company’s quarterly attestation reports. The Block later confirmed with a private source that the address was Tether’s.
The address first received a Bitcoin transaction in September 2022 for 33,900 BTC, worth $654 million at the time, meaning it has more than doubled its coins despite Bitcoin’s rising price in the past 15 months.
Tether is one of the most profitable companies in the crypto industry. Its Tether (USDT) token – which currently boasts a market cap of $94 billion – is 100% backed by reserves of the same size comprised mostly of cash and short-term US Treasuries.
According to its latest attestation, the company earned $1 billion in profit from its investments in treasuries and other cash equivalents in Q3 alone.
The company is currently using much of its profits to expand research across the Bitcoin and crypto industry and to bolster its “excess reserves” in case of volatility in Tether’s riskier investments. As of Q3, the company held $3.2 billion in excess reserves, including positions in gold and Bitcoin.
Tether is also foraying into the Bitcoin mining industry. Back in June, the firm backed the initial fundraising efforts for El Salvador’s $1 billion Bitcoin mining initiative.
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick confirmed in an interview this week that his company holds Tether’s treasuries, and assured investors that its tokens are fully backed.
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