Tether Holds Over 82000 Bitcoins and 48 Tons of Gold

Bijie.com reports:
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that the company holds over 82,000 bitcoins and 48 tons of gold reserves. Ardoino disclosed this on X, while clarifying comments about Tether USDT reserves.
This is in response to his earlier statement during the Lugano B program event discussing Tether products. According to him, the company also holds over $100 billion worth of US Treasury bonds to support the USDT stablecoin. Hence, all their USDT is fully backed.
He said, “Due to the confusion I see in this thread, let me clarify: Tether has about $100 billion in US Treasury bonds. Additionally, it has 82,000 bitcoins and 48 tons of gold.”
Ardoino’s comments have garnered positive responses from the cryptocurrency community, with some noting the diversification of Tether’s reserves. Some observers have noted that Tether having gold backing for USDT is very good, meaning USDT has gold backing. In their view, this is even better than the actual US dollar that stopped gold backing in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, other users are more interested in the complete status of Tether’s reserves, particularly how the gold is stored and whether it has undergone auditing. One user on X questioned whether the gold in Tether’s reserves is actual gold bars or derivatives such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and options.
Cryptocurrency markets recover from Tether FUD
The public disclosure of how Tether supports its USDT stablecoin seems to be related to recent claims by The Wall Street Journal that the company is under investigation by the US Department of Justice. Despite Tether immediately taking action to deny this news, calling it pure speculation and “repeated old noise,” it was enough to cause a market reaction.
Ardoino subsequently attempted to allay fears, uncertainties, and doubts (FUD), pointing out that Tether is cooperating with global law enforcement agencies, including the US, to combat crime. Therefore, the company will receive information regarding any investigation into it.
He said, “We will know if we are being investigated as stated in the article. Based on this, we can confirm that the accusations in the article are unfounded.”
This is not the first time the stability of USDT has been questioned, and each time it has garnered wider market attention. USDT holds a significant position in the cryptocurrency market, with a market capitalization of $120 billion, used in the majority of cryptocurrency transactions. According to data from CoinMarketCap, USDT had a trading volume of $32 billion in the past 24 hours, surpassing any other cryptocurrency asset, highlighting its importance in the crypto ecosystem.
This importance means that any news questioning the stability of USDT will have a negative impact on the market. However, the market seems to have recovered from the FUD that emerged after the news broke. Data from CoinGlass shows a slight increase in the value of Bitcoin, and the total open interest in cryptocurrency products has increased by over 1%. Nevertheless, futures trading volume has decreased by 43% in the past 24 hours.
Tether teases Local AI development kit
Meanwhile, Tether continues to diversify by expanding its business beyond stablecoin issuance. The company recently previewed its Local AI development kit, designed for writing and deploying artificial intelligence systems on various devices.
Ardoino, who launched the product, claimed that it prioritizes privacy and enables developers to write code on all devices, from smartphones to high-end computing systems powered by H100 chips, using peer-to-peer technology. According to Ardoino, the SDK supports various AI models, including Llama and Marian, making it versatile for multiple purposes.
Ardoino said, “Tether’s AI SDK is highly modular, supporting any model (Marian, Llama, etc.), and loading/storing weights and fine-tuning data in a P2P data structure.”
The Tether AI SDK has not been released yet, but as Ardoino pointed out, once the company has undergone comprehensive testing and determined it is ready for public release, it will be open-source.