Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has expanded the amount of gold for its reserves to back Tether USDT to more than 146 metric tons by adding 14 tons in the second quarter, the company said in a statement summarising its April-June results.
The crypto company became a significant buyer of gold last year for its reserves to back the Tether USDT stablecoin, a digital dollar with $183.7 billion worth of tokens in circulation, and the Tether XAUT gold token with $2.9 billion in circulation.
Each Tether-issued dollar token is intended to represent one U.S. dollar held in reserve. When a user provides Tether with a dollar, the company issues one USDT and holds assets of equivalent value, such as U.S. Treasury bills. Those reserves are meant to ensure that USDT can be redeemed for dollars if need be. Tether XAUT stablecoin is fully backed by gold.
Reserves to back Tether USDT had stocks of gold worth $18.8 billion as of the end of June, the report showed.
“We remained one of the world’s largest buyers of U.S. Treasuries, reduced secured lending by $2.38 billion, and added 14 tons of physical gold,” Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO, said in the statement.
Tether’s net operating profit for the quarter was $1.50 billion, led by the U.S. Treasury portfolio and repo performance, he added.
The data suggests that Tether sped up gold buying in the second quarter, when bullion posted its sharpest quarterly decline since 2013, falling 14%, compared with the first-quarter’s purchases of 6 tons.
The reserves backing Tether USDT are predominantly U.S. Treasury Bills, with gold and bitcoin representing only 10% and 3% of the reserves, respectively.
For the Tether gold token, XAUT, separate data showed Tether currently holds 22 tons of gold to back it up.
El Salvador-headquartered Tether does not disclose its total bullion holdings but they are probably larger: Ardoino told Reuters in January that the company aimed to allocate 10%–15% of its own $20-billion investment portfolio to physical gold.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt;Editing by Louise Heavens)
