Tether controls 97,141 BTC, valued at about $6 billion today, making it the second-largest private corporate Bitcoin holder if it were publicly listed. This stash grew steadily since 2023, funded by a policy allocating up to 15% of the company's quarterly operating profits into Bitcoin. The last recorded purchase was 8,888 BTC on New Year’s Day.
Unique Funding and Valuation Challenges
Unlike firms such as Strategy, which raise capital specifically to buy Bitcoin, Tether accumulates its holdings through retained earnings from its reserve business, which reportedly generated over $10 billion in net income in 2025. This approach flips the typical corporate treasury model on its head.
Despite its size, Tether’s Bitcoin treasury lacks a market price because it’s a private entity without shares or a public valuation. Corporate Bitcoin holders usually have metrics like market net asset value (mNAV) to gauge their holdings, but these don’t apply to Tether. Ranking services place Tether second behind Strategy’s 672,497 BTC, but valuation columns remain empty due to the absence of public trading data.
Diversification and Regulatory Concerns
Tether's reserves are not limited to Bitcoin. They include approximately 116 metric tons of gold worth over $17 billion, and around $135 billion in US Treasuries, supporting about $185 billion of USDT tokens in circulation. This diversified portfolio makes Tether a significant player in the digital asset space but also invites scrutiny.
Last December, S&P downgraded USDT to its lowest stablecoin rating, highlighting disclosure issues and a growing share of high-risk assets. Ironically, the same accumulation strategy that increases Tether’s Bitcoin influence is also a factor in the rating agency's negative assessment.
While the market tracks and values the Bitcoin treasuries of public companies with dozens of metrics and real-time analytics, Tether’s enormous private holding remains a blind spot. This lack of transparency complicates market understanding of one of the largest Bitcoin reserves backing a stablecoin widely used across the crypto ecosystem.
Strategy’s approach to Bitcoin reserves contrasts sharply with Tether’s, emphasizing different business models behind corporate Bitcoin accumulation.
