Tether holds about 150,000 bitcoin, Ardoino says at Lugano forum

What happened

Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin issuer holds "give or take 150,000 Bitcoin" on its corporate balance sheet, a figure he gave during a keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano, Switzerland. Crypto.news and Blockonomi both reported the remarks. Ardoino did not provide a wallet-by-wallet breakdown or a timetable for when the coins were acquired.

During the same presentation, Ardoino said Tether serves more than 730 million users and adds roughly 30 million new wallets each quarter. He described the company's expansion as part of its continuing financial inclusion efforts.

The bitcoin estimate came alongside Tether's third-quarter financial disclosures and a technology plan Ardoino calls the Independence Stack. According to the reports, the initiative spans energy, bitcoin mining, communications, self-custody wallets and artificial intelligence. Ardoino said the projects are meant to help communities rely less on centralized service providers.

Why it matters

Tether is the issuer of USDT, with issuance near $184 billion in the first nine months of 2026, so its balance sheet and reserve disclosures draw attention across crypto markets. A corporate bitcoin position of roughly 150,000 coins would be notable on its own, but the CEO's figure is an estimate rather than a specific line in the attestation. The disclosure also illustrates how Tether is channeling profits from its reserve portfolio into bitcoin and other ventures beyond stablecoin payments. Without a wallet breakdown, however, the announcement does not give a full reconciliation between the company-wide estimate and the bitcoin reserves listed in the Q3 report.

What the data shows

Excess reserves reached $7.95 billion at the end of September, up from $4.1 billion at the end of June, according to the attestation. Tether reported $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the third quarter and $4.5 billion over the first nine months of 2026. Directly held U.S. Treasury bills totaled about $122.84 billion, while overnight reverse repurchase agreements added $9.52 billion, for nearly $132.4 billion in direct and indirect Treasury bill exposure. The report also listed $19.08 billion in gold and $14.18 billion in secured loans. USDT issuance remained near $184 billion during the first nine months of the year.

Background

Tether started buying bitcoin in May 2023, when it adopted a policy of allocating a portion of its profits to the cryptocurrency. On Oct. 30, the company published its third-quarter attestation, prepared by BDO. It showed total reserve assets of $191.45 billion against liabilities of about $183.50 billion. The report valued bitcoin reserves at $8.37 billion as of Sept. 30, compared with about $5.8 billion at the end of June. Tether said the report values reserve assets at the reporting date and does not provide a complete reconciliation to Ardoino's company-wide bitcoin estimate.

What to watch

Several details remain open. Ardoino did not say how the roughly 150,000 bitcoin are distributed across wallets or when they were bought, and the Q3 reserve report does not fully reconcile with that company-wide estimate. Tether also has not given a launch date for the wallet products it announced with Shiga in September, which are intended to support USDT, bitcoin and Tether Gold for users and institutions in Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Separately, Ardoino outlined a plan to expand solar-powered battery kiosks in Africa to 100,000 over five years from about 5,000 that serve two million users and support 30,000 women in the network. He also said 15 mining companies, manufacturers and pools backed Tether's open-source Mining Development Kit in October.

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