Tether Adds $800M in Bitcoin Holdings as T‑Bill Yields Feed BTC Demand

Tether’s $800M Bitcoin buy, and what was disclosed

Tether’s bitcoin addition was described as roughly 8,888.88 BTC, a figure that lines up with the $780 million to $800 million range at prices around $89,000 to $90,000 per coin.

The company did not disclose the execution price, the trading venue, or whether the purchase was built over time or completed in a single session.

Tether also did not specify whether the position is held directly in its own custody or via a third-party custodian. That detail can shape how quickly reserves can be mobilized under stress, even when the asset is not meant to fund redemptions.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino posted about the update on X.

Tether has linked its bitcoin buying to a standing policy, rather than a one-off bet on near-term price action.

In a 2023 announcement, Tether said it would allocate up to 15% of net realized operating profits each quarter to buy bitcoin and hold it as part of its reserves, framing the program as profit-funded rather than backed by assets needed for day-to-day USDT redemptions, according to the company’s statement on its website.

Tether also did not provide a wallet address or transaction hash in the update. The company has pointed to public on-chain visibility for parts of its holdings in the past, but the exact on-chain trail for this transfer was not immediately clear from the disclosure.

How USDT’s Treasury-bill income becomes BTC demand

USDT is a stablecoin, a crypto token designed to hold a steady value against the U.S. dollar. Stablecoin issuers generally keep reserves in cash and cash-like assets so they can meet redemptions.

A Treasury bill, or T-bill, is short-term U.S. government debt that pays interest. When short-term rates are high, T-bills can generate significant income for large reserve pools.

That income is the bridge in Tether’s strategy. It turns yield earned in traditional money markets into new bitcoin demand, without needing to issue debt or sell equity like some bitcoin-focused corporate treasuries.

For a plain-language primer on why T-bill flows matter for crypto liquidity, see our explainer Fed to Buy $40B in T‑Bills: What It Signals for Bitcoin Liquidity (and Why It’s Not QE).

Tether’s transparency page reports a large allocation to Treasury bills alongside other reserve assets. The company did not break out the exact share of interest income that funded this quarter’s bitcoin purchase in the Jan. 2 update.

The mechanics still matter for markets. Profit-funded buying can be steady in size and timing, which can make it harder for traders to map the flow to any single headline.

What this says about USDT reserve risk and stablecoin rules

Moving profits into bitcoin changes the risk mix around USDT, even if the company says the peg is supported by dollar-denominated reserves rather than BTC.

Bitcoin can fall sharply, and any drawdown would flow through to the issuer’s balance sheet and any excess capital it holds above liabilities. Tether did not disclose how large that cushion was at the time of the purchase.

The tradeoff is straightforward. Parking profits in bitcoin can strengthen long-run exposure to the asset that underpins much of crypto market collateral, while also raising questions about how much volatility a stablecoin issuer should carry in assets that are not used for redemptions.

The move also lands in a period when stablecoin rulemaking is tightening. In the U.S., the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin framework has shifted the market toward clearer disclosure and tighter permitted-issuer lanes, which we broke down in The Genius Act and the Stablecoin Market.

Peers have taken different approaches. Circle says USDC is backed 100% by cash and cash-equivalent assets, with most reserves held in a government money market fund, per Circle’s USDC disclosure page.

What is still unknown is granular. Tether did not say whether the bitcoin was purchased spot or via intermediaries, how custody is structured, or whether more buys are scheduled beyond its profit-allocation policy.

The next checkpoints are Tether’s next reserve update and any new detail on how profits are allocated between excess reserves, Treasury bill rollovers, and bitcoin purchases. Markets will also watch U.S. rate decisions that drive T-bill yields, since that yield is the starting point for this strategy.

One more item sits in the background: stablecoin disclosure standards. If regulators and platforms lean harder on reserve clarity, investors will focus less on the headline size of a bitcoin buy and more on how it sits inside an issuer’s broader liquidity stack.