Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company holds about 150,000 bitcoin, worth some $11.5 billion at current prices. That is roughly 50,000 BTC more than the holdings implied by Tether's latest reserve report.
What Ardoino said in Lugano
Ardoino made the remark during his keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano, Switzerland.
"We have give or take 150,000 bitcoin ourselves. It's not much, but it's honest work," he said.
He did not say where the extra coins are held or when Tether acquired them, so the figure does not point to a new 50,000 BTC purchase. It is the CEO's own estimate, with no wallet breakdown or acquisition schedule attached.
Earlier in 2026, Tether's disclosures put its holdings between 96,000 and 100,000 BTC. Tether has said its proprietary investments, held through Tether Investments, are funded from excess capital and profits and kept separate from the reserves backing USDT. Those holdings would fall outside the reserve report, though Ardoino did not say whether they explain the gap.
Plan ₿ Forum is an annual event in Lugano, and the city launched its Bitcoin-friendly Plan ₿ initiative with Tether in 2022. Ardoino has used the stage in past years for company announcements.
What the third-quarter report lists
Tether's third-quarter reserve report, attested by the accounting firm BDO, values bitcoin at $8.37 billion, or $83,621.23 per coin as of Sept. 30. Those figures imply about 100,060 BTC, against roughly 98,930 at the end of June. That is an increase of about 1,130 BTC in the quarter.
Most of the $2.57 billion rise in the portfolio's bitcoin value came from price. Applying September's valuation to June's holdings accounts for about $2.47 billion of the gain.
Tether announced in May 2023 that it would put up to 15% of its net realized operating profits into bitcoin and hold the coins itself, not through third-party custodians. Some purchases have been large. Tether bought 8,888 BTC on Dec. 31, 2025, worth about $780 million at the time.
An attestation is a narrower exercise than a full audit. It confirms reserve figures as of a date, and it does not reconcile them to a company-wide estimate such as Ardoino's.
Treasuries, gold and a thicker cushion
The Q3 report, published Oct. 30, shows $191.45 billion in reserve assets against $183.50 billion in liabilities. Excess reserves rose to $7.95 billion from $4.11 billion in June, when the cushion had fallen by about half.
Tether reported $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the third quarter and $4.5 billion over nine months. Directly held US Treasury bills came to about $122.84 billion. Overnight reverse repurchase agreements added $9.52 billion, which brings direct and indirect Treasury exposure to nearly $132.4 billion. The report also lists $19.08 billion in gold and $14.18 billion in secured loans.
Ardoino said Tether serves more than 730 million users and adds about 30 million wallets each quarter. The company is privately held. Giancarlo Devasini owns roughly 45% and Ardoino about 20%.
Strategy Inc. reportedly holds 848,517 BTC, valued at about $71 billion. Tether's 150,000 BTC, if confirmed, would be a fraction of that, though it would still rank among the larger corporate holders.
Mining tools and the Independence Stack
Ardoino framed the bitcoin stake as one piece of a wider plan. He introduced what he called the Independence Stack, a set of technologies meant to work without leaning entirely on centralized providers. His presentation drew on Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels.
For mining, Tether has built an open-source Mining Development Kit that handles operations of different sizes. In October, 15 mining companies, manufacturers and pools backed it, among them Bitmain and Bitdeer. Ardoino said the aim is to let smaller operators mine while large facilities use the same tools.
The stack also includes Holepunch, a peer-to-peer system for apps that run without central servers. Keet, a messaging app built on it, has several million downloads and chat rooms with hundreds of thousands of people, Ardoino said. Tether's QVAC platform runs AI models on personal devices, and an offline speech recognition model came out in October.
Ardoino said Tether has put solar-powered battery kiosks in communities across Africa. About 5,000 kiosks serve two million users and support 30,000 women in the network, he said, and the plan is to reach 100,000 kiosks in five years. In September, Tether and Shiga announced plans for self-custodial wallets in Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council region. The companies did not give a launch date.
Roman Zaika
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