Tether moves nearly $100 million in bitcoin to reserve wallet: Arkham

Stablecoin giant Tether appears to have added another 961 BTC to its bitcoin reserve, according to onchain analysts.

"Tether has increased its BTC holdings by 961 BTC, worth $97.3M," Onchain Lens posted to X late Thursday, citing labeling from analytics platform Nansen for an address beginning "bc1qj." Data from Arkham also labels the address as part of Tether's bitcoin reserves, with the latest funds received from a Bitfinex hot wallet at 10:28 p.m. UTC.

While Tether has yet to publicly confirm the acquisition, the address is associated with the firm's prior bitcoin purchases, and the move is consistent with Tether's pattern of accumulating bitcoin and moving it to its reserve wallet periodically. It's also the first significant transfer into the wallet since Tether transferred 8,888 BTC , worth $1 billion, to the address at the end of September.

However, since the BTC came from Bitfinex, a centralized exchange that shares the same parent company as Tether, it's unclear if Tether purchased new coins or simply moved existing reserves. The Block reached out to Tether for comment.

Tether began acquiring bitcoin in September 2022. In May 2023, it officially announced that it would allocate 15% of its net profits each quarter toward bitcoin purchases. Since then, the company has consistently increased its reserves as part of its long-term diversification strategy.

This latest potential acquisition raises Tether's total holdings to 87,296 BTC, per Arkham , for its bitcoin reserve labeled address, worth around $8.9 billion at current prices. That figure places Tether as the second-largest known private company holder after Block One's 164,000 BTC ($16.4 billion) and third behind Strategy's 641,205 ($64 billion), when including public companies, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data. The Tether-backed bitcoin treasury company Twenty One also currently holds 43,514 BTC worth $4.4 billion.

"Did Tether buy the dip on bitcoin during the recent downturn?" onchain analyst Ember said . "Based on the price at which they withdrew from Bitfinex, the average purchase price of these bitcoin is approximately $49,121, with a current floating profit of $4.55 billion."

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, who is also CTO of Bitfinex, previously confirmed at Bitcoin 2025 in May that the stablecoin issuer held over 100,000 BTC in its reserves. However, it subsequently made a substantial 14,000 BTC ($1.5 billion) withdrawal from its bitcoin reserve wallet in June to an address labeled as belonging to Twenty One, and another 1,200 BTC ($143 million) withdrawal to a non-reserve labeled Tether address in July, per Arkham.

During its latest attestation for Q3 last week, Tether said the value of its bitcoin reserves stood at $9.9 billion as of Sept. 30. At a price of around $114,670 during that day, the figure would equate to approximately the number of bitcoins held in its reserve tracked by Arkham ahead of this latest 961 BTC transfer.

The "bc1qj" address ranks among the top six single address holders of bitcoin after several centralized exchange cold wallets and the Mt. Gox hack address.

Bitcoin is currently trading at around $100,545, according to The Block's BTC price page , down around 21% over the past month from an all-time high of nearly $126,000 on Oct. 6, remaining up just 8% year-to-date.

Tether's annual profits top $10 billion

Ardoino previously claimed USDT is used by more than 400 million people worldwide, growing at a pace of 35 million wallets per quarter, focused on developing countries while strengthening the U.S. dollar.

The firm reported profits of more than $10 billion for the first three quarters this year in its latest attestation. Tether holds over $135 billion in U.S. Treasurys as of Q3, placing it among the top 20 largest holders, comparable with sovereign nations like Brazil and South Korea, according to Treasury Department statistics.

Tether, whose team of less than 200 generated a profit of approximately $13 billion in 2024, has also been aggressively deploying capital into a variety of projects beyond stablecoins in recent years across sectors, including artificial intelligence, telecommunications, data centers, energy infrastructure, and bitcoin mining . Additionally, the firm recently announced USAT, a new U.S.-regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin intended to serve American users and complement USDT's global reach.

USDT remains the world's largest stablecoin, with a total supply worth about $183 billion in the $290 billion market, according to The Block's data dashboard .