Stablecoin issuer Tether made headlines on March 31 when it cleared 8,888 bitcoins worth $618 million.
The recent acquisition significantly boosts Tether’s reserves ahead of the upcoming Bitcoin halving event. This brings the total amount of Bitcoin in the vaults of stablecoin issuers to over 75,000. Bitcoin was purchased at an average price of $30,305.
Tether’s Bitcoin holdings are currently valued at $5.3 billion. Bitcoin wallets are also up 128%, with unrealized gains of over $2.94 billion.
Tether has been actively strengthening its Bitcoin holdings since the first quarter of 2023. Additionally, the company also revealed plans to invest up to 15% of the company’s profits generated from excess USDT holdings in Bitcoin. According to Tether, this will help diversify the stablecoin’s backing assets.
The acquisition makes Tether the seventh-largest Bitcoin holder in the world, according to data from Bitinfocharts. At the time of publication, Binance’s cold wallet ranked first with $17.31 billion.
Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino previously commented on Tether’s Bitcoin investment strategy, saying, “The decision to invest in Bitcoin, the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency, was driven by the strength and potential of Bitcoin as an investment asset. “It is supported,” he said.
“Our investment in Bitcoin is not only a way to improve the performance of our portfolio, but also a way to align ourselves with innovative technologies that have the potential to change the way we do business and live our lives.”
The company said in its Q4 2023 report that Bitcoin contributed $2.8 billion to its consolidated reserves. In November 2023, the company announced its intention to enter cryptocurrency mining, with plans to invest in a Bitcoin mining facility. The announcement noted that Tether’s goal is to establish mining operations in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador.
The development follows Tether’s USDT reaching a record market capitalization of $100 billion on March 4, growing at an annual rate of 9%.
Additionally, Tether announced the launch of a dedicated AI department on March 26. The company will develop open source AI models and work with other companies to integrate them into commercial products.