On April 1, 2025, Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoini , posted a Bitcoin wallet address publicly confirming its recent purchases after netizens raised concerns.
Tether, the issuer of USDT stablecoin , has acquired $8 billion Bitcoin, bringing its holdings over 100,000 Bitcoin, claimed " The Bitcoin Historian ," a key influencer in the crypto space. Soon after, @AdamSimecka, a commenter, expressed skepticism, saying, "Let me get this straight... Strategy and Tether bought a combined $10B of bitcoin, and the price went down?"
According to him, Strategy and Tether could not change Bitcoin's price, which is currently trading at $85,158.70 , down 2.94% in the last week. He asked if the purchase was real or simply on paper, referring to it as "paper bitcoin."
Paolo Ardoino responded with a wallet link hosted on mempool.space, a website that tracks transactions on the blockchain. The wallet is identified as a "hot wallet" used by Bitfinex, a crypto exchange closely associated with Tether.
The address has received over 1.1 million transactions, with nearly $97 billion worth of 1.1 million Bitcoin transiting. However, the wallet currently shows zero Bitcoin, likely because funds are rapidly moved out to mitigate risk—a standard behavior for exchange wallets that process customer transactions.
Data from memepool.space shows Tether owns over 90,000 Bitcoins, valued at roughly $7.8 billion.
Those holdings amount to around 0.46% of Bitcoin's supply, making the company one of the biggest holders of Bitcoin on record.