Tether CEO says company now holds about 150,000 Bitcoin

What happened

Tether now owns about 150,000 Bitcoin, worth more than $11.5 billion, CEO Paolo Ardoino said at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano on November 3, 2026. That is up from roughly 96,000 to 100,000 BTC reported earlier in 2026.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

Tether puts up to 15% of quarterly net profits into Bitcoin, so its growing stack ties part of the stablecoin issuer's reserves to a volatile asset. Larger Bitcoin holdings can lift gains in rallies but deepen losses in selloffs, which matters to holders of USDT.

Analyst inference

Tether's Q3 attestation valued Bitcoin reserves at $8.37 billion on September 30, up from about $5.8 billion at the end of Q2 2026. Most of its backing sits in about $132.4 billion of US Treasury securities, so Bitcoin is a smaller slice of reserves.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Tether bought 8,888 BTC on December 31, 2025, a purchase valued at approximately $780 million at the time, showing that some individual buys are large enough to stand out. Confirmed
2. Watch whether Tether keeps directing up to 15% of quarterly net profits into Bitcoin, the policy it adopted in May 2023, because that rule drives how fast the stack grows. Proposed
3. Track Tether's quarterly attestations, which are formal reserve reports, because they show the dollar value of Bitcoin reserves and whether Bitcoin becomes a larger share of total backing. Analyst inference

Affected assets

• BTC — Bitcoin
• USDT — Tether

Evidence

• cryptobriefing.com