Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, bought another $627 million worth of Bitcoin in the first quarter of the year, bringing its total crypto holdings to 75,354 BTC worth $5.2 billion.
Tether becomes 7th largest Bitcoin investor
Although Tether has not officially disclosed its Bitcoin addresses, The Block continues to track the stable crypto issuer’s Bitcoin holdings by tracking the addresses it confirmed to belong to Tether in 2023. Accordingly, it was reported that the tracked address has increased the amount of Bitcoin every quarter since September 2022. With its regular Bitcoin purchases, Tether has risen from the 11th largest Bitcoin whale at the beginning of this year to 7th place.
However, The Block also reported that Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino confirmed the purchase of 8,888 BTC during the first quarter. Tether first announced that it was accumulating Bitcoin in its first quarter report in May last year.
Last year, Tether announced plans to shift its fixed crypto asset reserve towards crypto, committing to reduce its holdings of US bonds and buy Bitcoin with 15% of its profits each quarter. Since last year, the company has continued to buy Bitcoin on a regular basis while also making indirect Bitcoin investments. In fact, Tether has come to the fore with its investments in Bitcoin mining in the last year.
In addition, Tether’s new initiative outside its core business is in the field of artificial intelligence. The company announced its goal to pioneer the development of open source and multi-modal AI models to set new standards in the crypto industry and increase innovation and accessibility in AI technology.
The company, which issues the market’s largest stablecoin, USDT, has already issued $104.5 billion worth of the stablecoin, according to the latest data. This means that USDT is the world’s largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum.
