Tether's CEO cites 150,000 bitcoin, about 50,000 more than its reserve report shows

Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin issuer holds "give or take" 150,000 bitcoin (BTC), about 50,000 more than the reserve report for September 30 implies, CoinDesk reported on November 3.

Two numbers, one company

CoinDesk quoted Ardoino as saying: "We have give or take 150,000 bitcoin ourselves." The report for the third quarter lists a different figure. Under the heading "Bitcoin", it shows $8,367,170,264 of bitcoin "held on-chain in wallets controlled by the Company", valued at $83,621.23 a coin, the closing price published by Bloomberg on September 30.

Dividing one by the other gives about 100,060 bitcoin, a calculation made for this article. Against 150,000, that leaves a gap of about 49,940 coins. CoinDesk put the difference at "roughly 50,000 more than the holdings implied by the company's latest report".

What the report covers

The report covers one entity, Tether International, S.A. de C.V., and a point in time: "11:59 PM UTC" on September 30. It was "Authorized & approved on 30 October 2026". The filing says the assets owned by that company "are considered to be reserves backing the fiat-denominated Tether tokens".

The bitcoin line is 4.4% of the $191,451,091,374 of reserves, a share computed from the report's own figures. Public equities, a separate $4,177,803,686 line, cover "indirect gold, bitcoin, and other asset exposure", so some bitcoin exposure is held in that form and is not counted in the coin total above.

The report puts liabilities at $183,496,460,904 and says the assets exceed them by $7,954,630,470.

What the remark does not show

The CoinDesk account does not say where the additional coins are held or when they were acquired, and a count of coins is not a purchase: nothing in the report or in Ardoino's remark points to a new buy of 50,000 bitcoin. Any coins held by a different Tether entity would fall outside this report, which covers only the company named in it. No statement from Tether reconciling the two figures was available at the time of writing.

A reserve number and a balance-sheet number are different things

We think the useful reading is narrow. A stablecoin's reserve report answers one question, whether the assets of the issuing company exceed what it owes holders, and on September 30 it showed a $7.95 billion margin. A chief executive's count of bitcoin answers another, which is what the wider group holds. The two can both be accurate, but only the first is attested at a date and a price.

The opportunity is transparency: if Tether published a holdings schedule by entity, the 50,000-coin difference would stop being a question. The threat is the opposite habit, where round figures in keynote remarks substitute for filings. We do not forecast bitcoin prices. Our view would change if a later attested report showed holdings near 150,000 coins, or if Tether said the extra coins sit outside its reserves.

The view in this final section is FinanceInTime's editorial opinion, for information only. It is not investment, tax, legal or other advice, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Forecasts are uncertain and past results do not guarantee future ones.