Tether Now Holds Over $5 Billion Worth of Bitcoin to Back USDT

Stablecoin issuer Tether now holds over $5 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to public blockchain data. 

Arkham Intelligence data—which tracks the crypto giant’s wallet—reveals that the company now holds over 75,354 Bitcoin, worth more than $5.1 billion as of this writing, after the firm bought 8,889 BTC in the first quarter of this year. 

Tether is the company behind the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, USDT. The company is one of the biggest Bitcoin holders, and has said its strategy is to keep buying the largest digital asset by market cap. 

Tether said last year that it would regularly allocate up to 15% of its net realized operating profits towards purchasing Bitcoin. The idea is to use the asset to hold in the reserves it uses to back its stablecoin.

The stablecoin—a digital coin backed by U.S. dollars or other real world assets—is the backbone of the crypto-economy; it’s widely used by traders for buying and selling digital assets and has a much higher 24-hour trading volume mark than Bitcoin.

Tether is a somewhat controversial company: in the past, it has been criticized for not being transparent enough about what backs USDT. And news reports have claimed the cryptocurrency is used to break the law, though that allegation isn't unique to USDT.

The price of Bitcoin is now below $69,000 per coin, having dropped nearly 3% in the past day. CoinGecko data shows that the asset is now priced at $68,567. Last month, the biggest digital coin hit a new all-time high ahead of the impending halving, and was closing in on $74,000. 

Edited by Andrew Hayward