Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin issuer holds roughly 150,000 Bitcoin on its corporate balance sheet. He disclosed the figure during a keynote at the Plan ₿ Forum in Lugano, Switzerland, telling attendees that Tether owns "give or take 150,000 Bitcoin." Ardoino did not provide a wallet breakdown or a schedule of when the coins were purchased. The disclosure came in the same talk where Ardoino laid out a company-wide technology agenda, tying the Bitcoin position to a broader strategy funded by the stablecoin business.

The executive added that Tether now serves more than 730 million users worldwide and that the company adds about 30 million new wallets every quarter — a base that gives the company's wallet and infrastructure plans a large existing audience.

Tether: a psychohistory interpretation. My latest keynote. @tether pic.twitter.com/2dQUVAMZE5 — Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) October 27, 2026

Tether's Bitcoin and Reserve Figures

Tether began purchasing Bitcoin in May 2023, when it adopted a policy of allocating a portion of its profits to the cryptocurrency. In its third-quarter report, the company valued its Bitcoin reserves at $8.37 billion as of September 30, up from roughly $5.8 billion at the end of June. Because the report values reserve assets on the reporting date, the figure does not fully align with Ardoino's company-wide Bitcoin estimate. Future attestations are the public record to watch for updated valuations or a more granular accounting of the holdings.

Tether published its third-quarter attestation, prepared by BDO, on October 30. It showed total reserve assets of $191.45 billion against liabilities of about $183.50 billion, with excess reserves climbing to $7.95 billion from $4.1 billion at the end of June. Even at that size, the Bitcoin position amounts to roughly 4% of the reserve portfolio, which remains anchored in short-term U.S. Treasury exposure alongside gold and secured loans.

The company earned $1.5 billion in net operating profit during the quarter, lifting its nine-month total to $4.5 billion. Directly held U.S. Treasury bills accounted for approximately $122.84 billion, while overnight reverse repurchase agreements added $9.52 billion, bringing total Treasury bill exposure to nearly $132.4 billion. The attestation also listed $19.08 billion in gold and $14.18 billion in secured loans. USDT issuance held near $184 billion across the first nine months of 2026.

Ardoino Outlines the Independence Stack

During the same keynote, Ardoino presented a technology plan he called the Independence Stack, a set of tools designed to operate without full reliance on centralized service providers. His presentation drew on Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, and the plan spans energy, Bitcoin mining, communications, self-custody wallets and artificial intelligence. Ardoino argued that technology can help communities become more independent in each of these areas. The agenda effectively links the company's core stablecoin economics — roughly $184 billion in USDT issuance and $4.5 billion in nine-month profit — to long-term bets on self-hosted infrastructure.

On the energy front, Tether has invested in solar-powered battery kiosks across Africa. According to Ardoino, about 5,000 kiosks currently serve two million users and support 30,000 women in the network. He outlined a plan to scale the deployment to 100,000 kiosks over five years, a level that could reach 200 million people.

In October, 15 mining companies, manufacturers and pools backed Tether's open-source Mining Development Kit, among them Bitmain, Bitdeer, Canaan, MicroBT, Foundry Digital and F2Pool. The stack also incorporates Holepunch, a peer-to-peer communications system that operates without conventional central servers.

On the wallet side, Tether's Wallet Development Kit offers software for building self-custodial wallets on multiple blockchains. In September, Tether and Shiga announced plans for wallets serving individuals and institutions across Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Those products are intended to support USDT, Bitcoin and Tether Gold, though no launch date was given — making launch timelines one of the concrete milestones to watch.

Tether's artificial intelligence work runs through QVAC, a platform for running AI applications directly on personal devices. In October, the company released an offline speech recognition model for smartphones, smart glasses and robotics. In Lugano, Ardoino described additional models for medical assistance, translation, computer vision and speech. He said Tether's research includes translation tools for 19 African languages and medical AI models with 1.7 billion and four billion parameters, and noted that the company's profits allow it to fund these projects.