Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino put a number on the stablecoin issuer’s Bitcoin position during a keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano on November 3: the company holds “give or take 150,000 Bitcoin,” a stack he valued at more than $11.5 billion. The figure, which he also posted to his X account, would rank Tether among the largest corporate Bitcoin holders in the world.
The audited number tells a smaller story. Tether’s third-quarter attestation, prepared by BDO under the ISAE 3000R standard and dated September 30, lists $8,367,170,264 of directly held Bitcoin. BDO priced the position at $83,621.23 per coin, which works out to roughly 100,000 Bitcoin.
The distance between the two figures is about 50,000 coins, worth near $4 billion at recent prices.
Two ways to close the gap
The first reading is pace. If Tether kept buying after September 30, its accumulation would have had to accelerate well past the rate shown during the third quarter. The second is definition. The attestation counts only Bitcoin held directly, while an executive speaking on stage may be including coins held through the company’s mining arm, investment vehicles, or other parts of what it calls its “Independence Stack.” Only the narrower figure carries an auditor’s signature.
What stays unverified
Tether has published no wallet list tying the 150,000 figure to specific addresses, so the number rests on the executive’s word rather than on-chain data. The attestation reports a dollar value at a single day’s price, not a coin count. And the valuation swings with the market: the same 150,000 coins were worth about $12.5 billion at BDO’s September 30 price and closer to $11.55 billion at the levels where Bitcoin traded on November 3.
The disclosure matters because of how Tether funds its purchases. The company generated $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter against roughly $184 billion in USDT issuance, and it has said for years that it channels a share of operating profit into Bitcoin. Purchases made from profit, rather than from the reserve assets that back USDT, mean a Bitcoin drawdown hits the earnings cushion before it touches token holders.
Two documents now describe Tether’s Bitcoin position, and they use different units. The keynote offers a round coin count. The attestation records a dollar value at a single day’s price. Readers who compare the two, instead of repeating the bigger number, get the honest picture.
The next checkpoint is the fourth-quarter attestation, expected around late January 2027. If the Bitcoin line lands near the $11.5 billion Ardoino cited rather than the $8.37 billion of the third quarter, the faster-accumulation reading gains support. Until then, the size of Tether’s Bitcoin treasury is a figure stated on stage, backed in part by a signed balance sheet, and not yet settled on-chain.
Adapted from Tether Says It Now Holds About 150,000 Bitcoin, a Position Worth More Than $11.5 Billion.