Tether Bitcoin Holdings: 150,000 BTC, 50,000 Unexplained
Tether bitcoin holdings are about 150,000 BTC, according to CEO Paolo Ardoino, roughly $11.5 billion at $77,000. That is about 50,000 BTC more than the company’s own quarterly report implies. Per crypto.news, he said it in a keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano.
What Ardoino said about Tether bitcoin holdings
He said: “We have give or take 150,000 bitcoin ourselves. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.” Bitbo reports he gave no wallet breakdown and no purchase dates. Note that this is his statement, not an audit. In fact, nobody outside Tether has verified the balance.
Tether bitcoin holdings: the 50,000 BTC gap
Tether’s Q3 attestation, prepared by BDO and published October 30, lists $8.37 billion of bitcoin at $83,621 a coin. CoinDesk’s arithmetic, as relayed by Bitbo, puts that at about 100,060 BTC. So 150,000 minus 100,060 leaves roughly 50,000 BTC unexplained in the report.
Tether’s explanation, per Bitbo: proprietary investments held through Tether Investments are kept apart from the USDT reserves, so they do not show in that report. That is plausible. However, it is the company’s own account. We cannot check it.
Tether has bought bitcoin since May 2023 under a policy of putting up to 15% of quarterly net profit into it. See our bitcoin price prediction page for where price sits today.
Tether and mining
Ardoino also pointed to Tether’s open-source Mining Development Kit. Crypto.news says 15 mining companies, manufacturers and pools back it, including Bitmain, Bitdeer, Canaan, MicroBT, Foundry Digital and F2Pool. Also, a holder with that much bitcoin and a stake in the mining stack is worth watching.
Miner math: what Tether’s 150,000 BTC means for your margin
Here is the live maths on November 3. Bitcoin is $77,466 and the network is 1025 EH/s, so hashprice is about $34.23 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.65 | -$2.99 | -$6.11 | 4.2c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.76 | -$1.14 | -$3.68 | 6.2c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.22 | -$0.95 | -$3.84 | 6.7c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.80 | $1.27 | -$2.10 | 9.5c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
Tether’s news is a disclosure, not a purchase – base case: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro rises from 6.2 to 6.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.14 to -$1.14.
The blunt answer for miners
It changes nothing today. Disclosing coins already owned adds no buying. Price, hashrate (near 1025 EH/s per mempool.space) and your power price still decide your profit. Check your own cents per kWh against the table above.
We read the real signal as this: a stablecoin issuer with $191 billion of reserves keeps stacking bitcoin and says so. Still, a coin count you cannot verify does not pay a power bill. If your machine sits under water, see we buy used miners or our mining economics guides.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.