Tether Holds About 150,000 Bitcoin, More Than 3x MetaPlanet and Strive

150,000 BTC Against the Treasury Field

Tether holds roughly 150,000 Bitcoin (BTC). Chief executive Paolo Ardoino set the figure out in a keynote at the Plan B Forum in Lugano, and the count is the company's own, given from the stage rather than through a listed company's periodic filing. Measured against the listed Bitcoin treasury strategy names it is usually compared with, the stack leads by a wide margin. MetaPlanet of Japan reports 44,000 BTC, a total Tether's exceeds by about 3.4 times. Strive holds 43,124 BTC, which puts the ratio near 3.5 to one, and Twenty One Capital, a treasury company Tether itself backs, has gathered 43,514 BTC. MetaPlanet, Strive and Twenty One Capital each sit within about 900 BTC of one another, yet taken together the three hold 130,638 BTC, still short of Tether's count on its own. Strategy remains the outlier above the field. Its disclosure on Monday, November 2, recorded an added purchase of 811 BTC that lifted the total to 849,327 BTC, and Tether's position works out to about 17.7% of that figure. The funding paths behind the two balances diverge as much as the sizes. Strategy, a listed company, adds coins through equity and preferred share issuance. Tether is an unlisted stablecoin issuer, so its purchases come out of operating profit rather than a capital raise, and no share sale sits behind the 150,000. The figure covers corporate holdings only and, as the company qualified, is not a claim about its reserve pool.

A 15% Profit Allocation Since May 2023

A written policy drives the buying. Since May 2023, Tether has allocated up to 15% of realized net operating profit to Bitcoin (BTC) purchases, a rule adopted on the view that Bitcoin's capped supply and its independence from any single country's monetary policy make it a long-term store of purchasing power. Ardoino has grouped the asset with gold as an inflation hedge: in a January interview he called it reasonable to hold about 10% of the company's own investment portfolio in Bitcoin and 10% to 15% in gold. The redemption side of the balance sheet runs on different assets. As of end-September, direct holdings of short-term US Treasuries stood near $122.8 billion, and exposure including repurchase agreements reached about $132.4 billion. High-liquidity assets of that kind exist to absorb USDT redemption demand as it arrives, while Bitcoin and gold carry the longer-term value-preservation mandate. The company is explicit that the 150,000 BTC is not counted in full among USDT collateral reserves, and the Q3 attestation showed excess reserves doubling to $7.95 billion on that same liquid base. The commitment now reaches past financial assets into infrastructure. At the forum, Ardoino laid out an “Independence Stack” covering energy production, Bitcoin (BTC) mining, peer-to-peer communications, self-custody wallets and on-device artificial intelligence, an agenda meant to cut reliance on centralized financial and technology services. The wallet plank points away from the hot wallet model custodial platforms run and toward hardware such as the Tangem Mobile Wallet, where keys stay with the holder. He also claimed more than 730 million users worldwide, with roughly 30 million new wallets added each quarter, a count the company itself compiles and one where wallet numbers do not equal unique users.

Where the Reserve Line Sits

For a USDT holder, the number that matters is not the Bitcoin count but the Treasury book behind redemptions. The $132.4 billion of government-paper exposure is what meets redemption requests, and the issuer has drawn a line keeping the Bitcoin stack on the investment side, a distinction that grows in weight as the fixed 15% profit allocation compounds the holding each quarter. Reserve levels at trading venues form the other side of that equation: Binance USDT reserves fell 7.95% in an October snapshot, and demand-side economics, where an IMF study put a $200 transfer at 2.18%, shape how much pressure the liquid base must absorb. The position as recorded: 150,000 BTC held on the investment side of the balance sheet.