Stablecoin issuer Tether now controls 25% of shares for Bitcoin miner Bitdeer, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
That makes the company behind Tether (USDT) the second-largest shareholder of the BTC miner's shares, behind Victory Courage Ltd., which is registered to Bitdeer CEO Jihan Wu. Before being appointed in March 2024, Wu was co-founder and former CEO of ASIC manufacturer Bitmain.
At the time of writing, Bitdeer shares are trading for $7.15, up 2% since U.S. markets opened. And the Bitcoin miner has seen its share price make an impressive 26% gain since the start of May.
In a Thursday morning SEC filing, Tether Holdings Limited disclosed that it now controls 23,587,360 BTDR shares. The huge uptick in its Bitdeer holdings is the result of a private placement deal it closed with the miner last week. Because of the deal, Bitdeer was able to raise $100 million in financing. The deal also includes a warrant that allows Tether to purchase up to 5,000,000 additional shares at $10.00 per share over the next year.
Bitdeer said it plans to use the proceeds to expand its data centers, develop ASIC-based mining rigs, and for other general corporate purposes.
"With Tether's support, we are poised to accelerate our growth and continue our leadership in sustainable and efficient Bitcoin mining," Linghui Kong, Chief Business Officer of Bitdeer, said in a press release last week. "This partnership marks a significant milestone for Bitdeer, and we look forward to achieving great things together."
Bitdeer has traveled a long road to getting listed on the Nasdaq, where it's traded under the BTDR ticker since last year. It went public through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) merger with Blue Safari Group last year after being thrice delayed.
The Bitdeer private sale isn't Tether's only deal of late.
On Wednesday, the USDT issuer announced that it invested $19 million in XREX Group, a firm that also has backing from the Taiwanese Government National Development Fund. XREX said it plans to use the funding to develop USDT-based cross border B2B payments and to launch XAU1, it's own U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin.
The startup's Singapore entity, XREX Singapore, was just granted the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Major Payment Institution License, which allows it to operate as a payment processor in the country.
Edited by Andrew Hayward