Tether, net profit of $ 1.48 billion in the first quarter ─ Bitcoin and gold holdings also revealed | coindesk JAPAN | Coindesk Japan

Tether, the company behind the stablecoin Tether (USDT), reported net profit for the first quarter of 2023 of $1.48 billion, according to its latest audit assurance report released on May 10. Doubled from Q4 2022.

For the first time ever, Tether has revealed details of its Bitcoin (BTC) and gold holdings. As of March 31, Tether’s balance sheet had $1.5 billion in Bitcoin (approximately 200 billion yen, converted to 135 yen to the dollar, approximately 2% of reserves of approximately $80 billion) and $3.4 billion in gold (approximately 4,600 billion yen, about 4% of reserves).

stablecoin winners

The $131 billion market cap stablecoin market was in turmoil this spring. Due to the U.S. banking crisis that occurred in March 2023, Circle’s USD coin (USDC), the second largest stablecoin by market capitalization, temporarily lost its linkage to the dollar. Tablecoins have also lost their dollar linkage.

In February, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) ordered Paxos, the issuer of Binance USD (BUSD), the third-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, to cease issuance. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was also reportedly investigating Binance USD as an unregistered security.

With a market capitalization of $81.8 billion as of May 9, Tether (USDT) has clearly emerged as a “winner” in the turmoil of the stablecoin market, with a market cap of $16 billion since the beginning of the year and 24 %It has increased. Tether also issues stablecoins that are pegged to other currencies and gold, although they are small compared to the market cap of Tether (USDT).

Conor Ryder, an analyst at Kaiko, a cryptocurrency data provider, said, “Tether has been recognized as safe by the SEC, and the recent dollar-pegged security. It has become the most trusted stablecoin in the industry.”

Reserves are at a record high

Tether holds approximately $2.44 billion in reserves against $79.4 billion of Tether-issued stablecoins in circulation as of March 31. Tether’s CTO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement that the amount of reserves is the highest ever.

According to Tether, all newly issued tokens were either invested in US Treasury bills or deposited in overnight and reverse repos. The company held approximately 85% of its total reserves in cash and cash equivalents, US Treasury bills and bank deposits.

Tether continued to reduce mortgage lending in its reserves, down about $500 million to $5.3 billion in the first quarter. In December 2022, the company pledged to eliminate mortgage lending by the end of 2023.

Tether has been criticized in the industry over the years for its lack of transparency in its reserves and its controversial behavior. In 2022, a U.S. court ordered Tether to produce documents related to Tether’s backing assets in a lawsuit alleging it attempted to inflate the price of Bitcoin with its newly issued stablecoin.

“We have a very positive outlook and we will continue to focus on transparency. In addition, we have introduced a new category for the breakdown of reserves in our quarterly report,” it said in a statement.

｜Translation: coindesk JAPAN
｜Editing: Rinan Hayashi
| Image: Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk
｜Original: Tether Reports $1.48B Profit in Q1, Reveals Bitcoin, Gold Reserves